“Let me see if I have this right,” Reva said as the silence stretched. “The Realm Guard was two days out from Varinshold when word came of invasion. Correct?”
The cavalryman nodded.
“The Battle Lord turns you all around, a day later you’re drawn up against the Volarians then Fief Lord Darnel appears on the horizon with his knights.”
“We thought he’d come to aid us. Though the Departed know how he could’ve gotten there so quickly.”
“You are saying,” Veliss put in, “that Fief Lord Darnel is a traitor? That he led his men against the King’s host?”
“I am, my lady. And as for the King, I met some refugees from Varinshold on the road. Word is the King’s dead.”
Silence reigned and Reva wondered at her lack of exultation. The King of the Heretic Dominion lies slain and all I feel is dread.
“There were no survivors?” Veliss pressed. “The Battle Lord?”
“Last seen charging the Volarian line, alone,” the cavalryman replied. “As for survivors, Lord Marshal Caenis had rallied the Wolfrunners and a few other regiments for a rear guard, but they were sorely pressed last I saw. My own Lord Marshal sent me and four others to bring news to you here, I was the only one to make it.”
“Thank you,” Uncle Sentes said in a faint tone. “Please leave us to consider your tidings. Quarters will be provided.”
The cavalryman nodded, rising to his feet, then hesitating. “You should know, my lord. The tales I heard on the road leave little doubt as to the nature of our enemy. These Volarians do not come just for conquest, but for slaves and blood. They cannot be treated with.”
Lady Veliss gestured at the door with a polite smile, leading the man from the chamber. “Lord Darnel seems to have found grounds for treaty,” she commented when the door closed.
“Darnel is a self-glorying fool,” the Fief Lord replied with little emotion. “Though I never thought his vain ambition would lead him to this. One wonders what they promised him.”
“I told the guard captain on the gate to send scouts north,” Reva said. “If they come, we should have warning.”
“I seriously doubt it’s a question of ‘if.’” He turned to Veliss who stood with a hand covering her mouth, eyes distant. “No counsel for me, my most trusted advisor?”
Veliss swallowed and glanced at Reva.
“My heir should hear your wise and honest guidance, don’t you think?” he told her.
“Five pounds of gold lie waiting in the basement of this manse,” Veliss said. “Swift horses in the stables and a well-attended port an hour’s ride south.”
Reva found herself on her feet, advancing towards the woman with fists clenched.
“He desires honest counsel,” Veliss protested, backing away.
“Reva!” Uncle Sentes barked as she reached for the Asraelin woman. “Leave her be!”
“Just a whore after all,” Reva said, glowering at Veliss but stepping back.
“In recognition for your good and faithful service to this fief,” Sentes told Veliss, “you may take one of those pounds of gold, and a swift horse of your choosing, and depart with no recrimination.”
A flush of anger marred Veliss’s face. “You know I won’t do that.”
“But you would have me do it?”
“I would have you live. You heard what the soldier said. If the Realm Guard can’t oppose them, what chance have we?”
Uncle Sentes rose from his chair and went to the long window at the rear of the chamber, looking out at the grounds and the rooftops jutting above the manor wall. “Did you know this city has never been taken? My grandfather held it against Janus’s father for a whole summer. Eventually, the besiegers grew more starved and diseased than the besieged and they went back to Asrael, leaving half their army behind. Janus, always wiser than his father, never even tried to take this city, he knew all he had to do was keep ravaging the fief.”
“What’s to stop the Volarians doing the same?” Veliss asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Uncle Sentes turned back from the window, smiling at Reva. “You, my wonderful niece, are also free to take . . .”
“What do you intend, Uncle?” she broke in before he could finish.
An unfamiliar expression came to his face as he looked at her, an odd smile of contentment on his wine-red lips. Pride, Reva realised after a second. He finds pride in me.
“When I first went to enjoy the hospitality of King Janus’s court,” the Fief Lord said after a moment, “before I developed my appreciation for wine, and other pleasures, I had a liking for games. Especially cards. They have a complex game in Asrael called Warrior’s Bluff, where victory depends largely on how you bet. Stake too much and your opponents know you have the better hand, too little and they see your bluff. I must have played a thousand games, becoming rather rich in the process I must say. Eventually it was difficult to find others willing to play against me and I found other distractions.”
“So,” Veliss said. “How much do you intend to stake now?”
“Warrior’s Bluff gets its name from one particular hand, the Lord of Blades and the five other cards in the martial suit. Even if every other player holds cards with grater value, if you hold the Warrior’s Bluff, the game is yours.” He moved to Veliss and embraced her, Reva seeing how her fists bunched in his tunic, the knuckles white. Uncle Sentes drew back and kissed her softly on the cheek. “I intend to stake it all, my lady, for I suspect the Lord of Blades sits high in our deck.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The commander of Alltor’s City Guard stood tall and straight, breastplate gleaming, his grey whiskers neatly groomed. Behind him the six hundred men of the guard stood in ranks, all similarly polished and straight-backed. Beside them stood the four hundred some men who made up the Fief Lord’s House Guard, all at least six feet tall as tradition dictated. A thousand men to hold a city, Reva thought as her uncle stepped onto the back of a cart. It won’t be enough. As many times as she had fought, she had never seen battle so had no experience to support the gloomy conclusion, but the cavalryman’s tale had left little room for optimism.
The muster had been called less than an hour before, convened on the gravelled parade ground next to the barracks. Rumours were already flying: the cavalryman’s appearance at the gate had been well marked, so many of these men would no doubt suspect trouble was brewing, yet every face betrayed only the stoic discipline of the long-serving soldier. The wind was stiff, stirring dust and setting cloaks and banners aflutter, her uncle obliged to shout to make himself heard.
“War comes to us,” he called. “Unsought and unjust, brought to our shores by the foulest race this world has yet to birth. I do not beg your loyalty, I do not seek to persuade. I tell you simply you must stand here and fight what comes or face death if you are fortunate and slavery if you are not. Our enemy brings no other gifts. I give you all this day as your own. Go home, be with your families, look into the face of your wife and imagine her raped, look on your children and see them as corpses. Look at this city and see it as a burnt and wasted shell. Then, come the morning, decide if you will stand with me and my valiant niece, as we defend this city.”
He turned to step down from the cart, pausing in surprise as voices were raised in the ranks, a few at first but soon building until a great cheer ascended from every soldier present, fists and swords raised to punch the air. Reva scanned the chanting faces in the ranks, seeing mostly fear and sweat, but also something more. Not courage. Desperation, or is it hope? They find hope in a drunkard’s words.
The commander of the City Guard strode forward as the Fief Lord stepped down from the cart, saluting smartly.
“Lord Arentes?” her uncle asked.
“I know I speak for my men, my lord,” the man said in formal tones, his back just as straight as before. “We need no day for reflection. The defence of th
is city requires every hour at hand.”
“As you wish. No doubt you will have requests to make in due course.” He extended a hand to Reva. “The Lady Reva will stay at your side throughout the preparations, any requests will be made through her.”
The old guardsman gave Reva the briefest glance of examination, too quick to judge his reaction, but she heard a certain tightness to his tone when he replied to her uncle. “As my lord wishes.”
Uncle Sentes leaned close to kiss her cheek, whispering, “Keep an eye on the old buzzard for me.”
“I’d like Arken to assist me,” she said as he drew back.
“I’ll send him along.” He went to his carriage, leaving her with the Lord Commander.
“I thought I might tour the walls, my lady,” he said. “If you would care to join me.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The walls were fashioned from great blocks of granite, each taller than she was, held in place by virtue of their sheer weight. “Stood unbroken for four hundred years, my lady,” Lord Commander Arentes said in answer to her query. “Some cracks showing in the lower stones, but I’ll still stake the city on their strength.”
Reva recalled one of the stories about Al Sorna’s exploits during the desert war. The details were vague, and Al Sorna himself had simply ignored or waved away any question she voiced about those days, but it had something to do with the Alpirans sending great engines against the city he had seized.
“Aren’t there engines?” she asked. “Devices capable of bringing down walls like these.”
Arentes gave an indulgent chuckle as they strode along the battlements where his men were busy stacking weapons. “Not like these, I assure you. A castle may fall to siege engines, given enough time, but the walls of Alltor have stood against the greatest such devices Asraelin cunning could devise. No, the battle will be won here.” He slapped a hand on one of the crenellations forming the battlements. “To take this city they’ll have to climb these walls, and when they do . . .” He sniffed, narrowing his gaze. “Well, they’ll find they’re not facing Asraelins now.”
“I’m Asraelin,” Arken said. “And I believe there are about two hundred others who make their home here.”
“Then, young man, I fervently hope they fight for it better than the Realm Guard fought for their fief.”
Arken drew breath for a retort but Reva motioned him to silence. “The Volarian army is said to be huge,” she said. “But we have barely a thousand men.”
“Yes,” Arentes admitted with a sigh. “I would ask that your Lord uncle call every man of fighting age to assist in the defence. Plus all those we can gather from the wider fief whilst time allows.”
“What of their families? Do we bring them here too?”
“Hardly. Sieges are not just won with battle, but also hunger. The fewer mouths to feed within these walls the better.”
“So we just leave them out there to face slavery and death, whilst their men fight for us?”
“This is war, Lady Reva. And Cumbraelins know well how to bear the cost of war.”
“You won’t be bearing it,” Arken pointed out. “You’ll be safe behind these unbreachable walls of yours.”
Arentes stiffened. “My lady, I doubt His Lordship permits you to keep this Asraelin commoner at your side so he can offer insults to his betters.”
This man is a pompous fool, Reva decided. She inclined her head, smiling. “My apologies, my lord. Shall we complete the tour?”
◆ ◆ ◆
By nightfall Lady Veliss had added over three thousand men to the rolls, about half possessing longbows or sundry weaponry. Messengers were sent to all corners of the fief commanding men of fighting age to report to Alltor within three weeks. At Reva’s urging a paragraph had been added to the message offering sanctuary within the city walls for any who sought it. Veliss had protested, echoing the objections of Lord Arentes, but the Fief Lord overruled her. “If we can’t offer protection to our own people, what worth will they see in us?” he enquired, although Reva detected a certain calculation in his gaze as he spoke, making her wonder if her influence served a deeper purpose.
Every day parties of woodsmen brought freshly cut ash and willow back from the surrounding forests to be fashioned into arrows, the smiths working hard to churn out the thousands of arrowheads needed. Food was stockpiled and the warehouses in the merchants’ quarter were soon so full of grain the grounds of the manor were given over as extra storage space. A note from the Fief Lord to the Reader requesting use of the cathedral vaults for the same purpose received a terse response: “The Father’s House is not a shed.”
In fact the impending siege seemed to have had little effect on the Reader’s schedule. He and his bishops still made the daily procession through the square, though not so many were inclined to kneel, busied as they were by the myriad tasks allotted by Lady Veliss. The Reader’s services also continued uninterrupted, often to mostly empty pews, though some reported his sermons were more impassioned and compelling than usual.
“Doesn’t mention the war at all,” a House Guard told Reva as she and Arken helped him carry bushels of arrows up to the battlements. “Seems most fond of the Sixth Book these days.”
The Book of Sacrifice. “Any particular passage?” she asked.
“Oh, what was it last time?” The guard hefted a bushel onto the growing pile above the main gate. “The one about how Alltor’s children refused to leave him when the mob came for him.”
“‘The blades of the unloved shone bright beneath the moon,’” Reva quoted. “‘The blood of the martyred brighter still.’”
“That’s the one. Can’t claim to be that fussed about it all, but the wife insists we go. The last Reader though, now there was a man you could listen to all day. He really made the books sing.”
◆ ◆ ◆
New recruits began arriving in large numbers towards the end of the first week. About a hundred a day at first, swelling to over four hundred within ten days, many with families in tow. Most of the older men carried longbows whilst the younger often bore swords or pole-axes handed down by their fathers, though many had no more than bill-hooks or any farm implement with an edged blade. A few brought no weapon at all and Uncle Sentes was obliged to empty the manse’s sword room to meet the need.
“This one I’ll keep, I think” he said, holding up his grandfather’s sword as the others were carried through the gates to be handed out. “Bag me a few Volarians with it, eh?” He made a few clumsy swings with the sword as Reva looked on.
“I’m sure I’ll bag enough for both of us, Uncle,” she said.
“Oh no.” His tone was emphatic. “You will stay by me and Lady Veliss for the duration of this siege.”
Reva gaped at him. “I will not . . .”
“You will, Reva!” It was the first time he had raised his voice to her and she found herself taking a backward step from the anger in his face. Seeing her alarm his expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
“I fight,” she said. “It’s what I do. It’s all I can do. All I can offer you and these people.”
“No. You offer more than that. You offer hope, hope that this fief will survive what comes to tear it down. And that hope cannot die. I have seen battle, Reva. It knows no favourites, it claims the strong and the weak, the skilful and the clumsy.” He extended a hand and she took it. “The old and the young. I need your word. You will stay by me and Lady Veliss.”
His grip was gentle, but insistent. “As you wish, Uncle.”
He squeezed her hand and turned back to the manor.
“The Lord of Blades,” she said. “You’re so sure he’ll come?”
“Aren’t you? You know him better than I.”
“The Reaches are many miles away, and who knows what lies between him and us. And all the people of this fief have ever offered him is fear and hatred. Why would he
come?”
He put a hand around her shoulders as they walked through the gardens, rows of grain sacks ascending on both sides, the topiary animals all cut down days ago. “When the High Keep fell I found Al Sorna crouched over your father’s body, reciting one of their catechisms. For some reason he seemed genuinely upset. He also ordered the bodies of your father’s men given a proper burial under the Father’s gaze. Whatever hatred our people may level at him, I don’t think he returns it. He’ll come, I have no doubt of it. We’ll just have to ensure there’s something here for him to save when he does.”
◆ ◆ ◆
She took to sparring with the House Guards most afternoons, two or three at a time assailing her with practice swords as she danced her dance, deflecting every blow and landing her own. None seemed to be affronted by defeat at the hands of a teenage girl, if anything they seemed heartened by her skill, a few even seeing something of the divine in it.
“The Father guides your sword, my lady,” the senior sergeant said after she had sent two more of his men stumbling into each other. His name was Laklin, a stocky veteran of battles against various outlaws and rebels, and a survivor of Greenwater Ford. He was also the first Cumbraelin she had met, besides the Reader, who came close to matching her knowledge of the ten books. “‘The Loved need not fear the tides of war or the swords of evil men, for the Father will allow them no defeat.’”
Nor suffer them to bring war to the Unloved, Reva completed the quotation, thinking it best left unsaid.
Her gaze was drawn to the edge of the parade ground where a new company of recruits were giving their names to a harassed-looking Lady Veliss. She was an oft-seen presence throughout the city, two assistants in tow burdened with numerous scrolls and ledgers as she signed permissions on behalf of the Fief Lord and kept records of men and supplies, all meticulously transcribed into a single leather-bound volume come the evening. More than once Reva had found her slumped across it in the library, snoring faintly. Reva noted the suspicion on her face as she took down the name of the man before her, an archer heading a company of some thirty men. Bren Antesh, Reva recalled. True to his word.