They kept at it for nearly four hours until the first glimmer of dawn broke over the broad river, ever more battalions trooping over the causeway to try their luck, more and more bodies littering the ground as every assault failed. It was costly, Arentes reporting losses of over three hundred killed and another two hundred wounded, but they held. Finally the surviving Volarians pulled back, the Varitai re-forming ranks and reclaiming their shields, the Free Swords forgetting discipline and running as the arrow storm descended once more, burgeoning daylight increasing the toll exacted by the longbows.
Excited shouts brought her back to the present and she saw a live Volarian being dragged from the river. A Free Sword, judging by his evident fear, turning to abject terror when he saw her approach.
“Yes,” she said. “The elverah’s here.”
The man just stared at her in frozen horror, only the faintest glimmer of reason in his eyes. This one will never fight again.
“My lady?” one of the archers asked, his dagger already drawn.
“Does anyone here speak his language?”
◆ ◆ ◆
Only Veliss had enough knowledge of Volarian to communicate with the man, and even then just in written form. She referred to her books to translate Reva’s message and had him recite it back. Sending a note may have been easier but she wanted his comrades to hear the fear in his voice as he related her words.
“The elverah has much power and will kill all who come against this city. But she is merciful. Your commanders waste your lives in fruitless attacks whilst they sit safe in their tents. Any who throw down their arms and depart this place will be spared the elverah’s vengeance. Only death awaits those who stay.”
“Is he saying it right?” she asked Veliss as the man stumbled through the words held in front of his eyes.
“As far as I can tell.”
Reva turned to Antesh. “Have him read it out ten times then let him go. I’ll be with my uncle.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They didn’t come the next night, or the night after that. The Volarian camp went about its martial business with no sign of preparing another assault. If any more towers or rafts were being constructed, it was done out of their sight. Otherwise they drilled, sent out cavalry patrols and made no further effort to cross the causeway.
“Seems they intend to starve us out after all,” Antesh commented.
“Bloody cowards,” Lord Arentes said. “A few more assaults like the other night and we’d have won this siege.”
“Hence the starving us out.” The Lord of Archers stepped to Reva’s side. “We could sally forth, my lady. Launch a raid or two. Might provoke another unwise attack.”
“As you wish,” she said. “But keep it small, and volunteers only. Preferably men without families.”
“I’ll see to it, my lady.”
The succeeding days saw her settle into an irksome routine of daily inspections, training the defenders to ensure they didn’t slacken and going over Veliss’s reports of ever-more-diminishing supplies.
“We’re down to half already?” she asked one evening. “How is that possible?”
“People seem to eat more when they’re afraid,” Veliss replied. “Plus we went through the fresh meat and livestock in the first few weeks. Now it’s just bread and a little salted meat. I’m sorry, love, but the ration must be cut again. And not just the people, the soldiers too. That’s if we’re going to last the winter.”
Reva stared down at the neatly inscribed figures on Veliss’s parchment. “Did you learn this somewhere?” she asked. “The pen work?”
“My old dadda was the village scribe. Taught me the trade, but the, ah, distractions of womanhood led me to Varinshold before I could be properly apprenticed.”
“Did he beat you? Is that why you left?”
Veliss laughed. “Faith no. Doubt he ever lifted a hand to anyone, even my mother though the cheating cow certainly deserved it. He was just a kindly, dull little man with no desire to see what lay beyond his village. I wanted more.”
Over by the fire her uncle stirred again, mumbling something in his sleep. “He dreams a lot these days,” Veliss said. “Rambles on about his family for hours when he’s awake.” Despite the caustic tone Reva could see the concern in her face, the onset of grief for a man not yet dead. She fought the impulse to reach for her hand and rose from the desk.
“Set aside enough wine for his needs,” she said. “And empty the cellar, the bottles will be given to the people. Might sweeten the pill of cutting the rations.”
“Or fill the streets with riotous drunks.”
“Dole it out a little at a time. Any more visits from the Reader’s dog?”
“No, the old man seems content to rave away in his cathedral. The services are well-attended though and my sources tell me his rhetoric is becoming more bizarre and doom-laden by the day. The Father’s judgement descends upon us, and so forth. Could be a problem as things get worse.” Reva detected a certain weight of meaning in Veliss’s words.
She glanced at Uncle Sentes. “Did he have any design to constrain the old man’s power?”
“He preferred the slow game. Gather intelligence, evidence of hypocrisy or corruption, and wait for a time to use it, either as leverage or to have the Reader replaced with a more tractable cleric. With you we finally had something that might give us an advantage.”
“But only if we could find the priest.”
“Quite so.”
Reva went to the window, gazing up at the twin spires. He’s not here, she thought. Not in the city. I’d smell it if he was. “Tell your watchful friends to keep watching,” she said. “For now.”
◆ ◆ ◆
She was woken in the early hours of the morning by Arken’s insistent shaking. She had taken to sleeping on the couch in the library between shifts on the wall, not wishing to stray too far from her uncle’s side. It seemed Veliss had decided to share it with her sometime in the night. The woman lay against her side, arm draped over her waist and head resting on her shoulder, thick dark brown curls partly covering Reva’s face. They smelt like strawberry.
Reva disentangled herself quickly, reaching for her weapons and avoiding Arken’s gaze. If he found anything untoward in the scene however, it was absent from his voice. “Something’s happening on the river.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“What are they?” she asked, gazing out at the strange contraptions perched on the deck of the ships anchored in the river. They were hard to make out in the morning haze hanging over the Coldiron, large blocky shapes with round shoulders and stubby arms, crouching like malformed giants in the mist.
Lord Antesh stared at the ships in grim silence and it was Arentes who spoke up. “Engines, my lady. But not like any I have ever seen.”
The faint echo of shouted orders drifted across the river as a long line of boats materialised out of the haze covering the far bank, each laden with something large and round.
“There’s a quarry barely ten miles south,” Antesh commented in a reflective tone. “Not a thing you can burn, a quarry.” He hefted his thick-staved bow, notched an arrow and raised it at a high angle, drawing the string a good six inches past his ear before releasing. The arrow arced high over the river and fell into the swift-flowing current ten yards short of the nearest ship.
“What engine can sling a stone farther than an arrow?” Arentes wondered.
“It seems these can,” Antesh replied. His gaze tracked from the engines to the wall. “The stones will likely fall somewhere between the gatehouse and the western bastion. If they’re smart, they’ll try for multiple breaches.”
“Clear the battlements there,” Reva said and Arentes immediately strode off shouting orders, the defenders on the wall breaking off from gaping at the engines to run for the stairways.
“We should prepare defences back fro
m the wall,” Antesh said. “It’ll mean pulling down some houses to create a killing ground.”
“Then get to it,” Reva said. “Have Lady Veliss issue receipts for any loss of property. Oh, and give any dispossessed householders the best wine from the Fief Lord’s cellar.”
He bowed and marched off. Reva watched the boats as they made their way to the three anchored ships, hearing the crack of several whips as slaves laboured to haul the stones onto the decks. A faint clinking sound could be heard as the arms of the engines were drawn back, dim figures moving on the deck as the stones were hauled into place. Then silence, the engines primed but unmoving. What are they waiting for?
One of the archers straightened and pointed to something upriver. Reva moved to his side and peered into the mist, seeing only a faint shadow at first, a tall square sail ascending out of the haze. Soon however the full size of the ship was revealed, the largest she could recall seeing, the great dark hull displacing a wake that washed onto the shore like a wave at high tide. The ship’s sides rose from the water at least twenty feet high, numerous figures moving about on deck in the centre of which stood a white awning. Reva strained her eyes and fancied she saw the outline of a tall figure standing beneath the canvas. Come to watch the show, have you? She gripped her bow and wondered if Arren’s wondrous work would give an arrow enough flight to reach him from here, but knew it would be an empty gesture of defiance and the mood of the defenders was already plummeting before her eyes.
There came a rattling of chains then a splash as the huge ship weighed anchor, positioned some twenty yards to the rear of the three ships with their slumbering giants. A single flaming arrow arced up from the deck of the great ship, trailing smoke as it fell into the water, and the giants spoke, the stubby arms springing forward with a great thrum, the stones they cast at first too fast to follow as they ascended high enough to make them appear like pebbles thrown by an angry child. They seemed to hang there against the sky for an age, as if frozen by the World Father in answer to the thousand prayers now ascending from the walls. But if so, His hand reached down for no more than an instant.
The first stone fell short, impacting on the bank with sufficient force to shake the wall beneath her feet and raising a waterspout high enough to bring rain to the battlements. The second flew over the wall, gouging some stonework from the inner battlement before crashing into the houses beyond, raising screams and the sound of hundreds of bricks falling onto cobbled streets.
The engineers servicing the third giant, however, clearly knew their business all too well. The massive stone sphere struck just below the rim of the west-facing wall, the force of it sending her reeling as rubble exploded from the impact. The stone rolled down the outer wall to thump into the bank below. Reva stared at the point of impact, expecting the cracks she could see in the stone to immediately widen and the whole section collapse. Instead the dust settled and the wall held.
She got to her feet, watching the giants pulling their arms back in readiness for the next throw, engineers busy around the contraptions as they adjusted their aim. Well, she thought. They have to go.
◆ ◆ ◆
This time she stood firm against Antesh’s threats of resignation, and also Veliss’s damp-eyed imprecations. “It has to be me,” she said simply, leaving the reason unsaid. No-one else can do it. He didn’t send anyone else against the Alpiran engines during the desert war—neither will I.
The boats were readied in the narrow channel through the north wall that provided access to river traffic. Fifty picked men in ten boats, piled high with oil pots and fire arrows. Like her, all were dressed in black with soot smeared over every inch of exposed skin and all blades tarnished to conceal their gleam. She found Arken at the prow of her own boat, sitting silently with his axe clamped in a two-handed grip. From the set of his shoulders it was clear removing him from the boat would require some considerable force.
“Hope you’ve kept it sharp,” Reva said, sitting down next to him and nodding at his axe.
“Doesn’t seem to matter,” he said. “Hit them hard enough and they fall over regardless.”
She pressed a kiss to his cheek, finding she couldn’t help but enjoy the flush that crept over his skin despite a pang of guilt. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. “Stay close to me.”
The boats were launched a short while after midnight. The sky was cloudy, sparing them any betraying moonlight as they struggled against the current, working the oars in heavily greased cleats to conceal the sound. They ploughed downriver for a hundred yards before angling towards the west and shipping the oars, letting the current do the work as they hunkered low in the boats. The engines continued their bombardment even at night, well lit with torches to allow the engineers to service their monsters. The low crump of stone striking stone a slow drumbeat as the helmsmen brought them ever closer.
Reva stood as the nearest ship came within range, arrow notched as she sought a target, finding a stocky man on the port side, pounding a mallet into some fixture on the engine. It was a poor attempt, the bob of the current and the forward movement of the boat throwing off her aim, but she did manage to sink the arrow into the engineer’s thigh. He gave a shout, falling to the deck as his comrades straightened from their work, frozen in surprise and easily made out in the torchlight.
“Up!” Reva shouted, notching and loosing once again. The other archers rose and loosed as one, the volley sweeping the engineers from the deck in an instant. The helmsman steered the boat to the ship’s side, three more crowding alongside as Reva gripped a rope and hauled herself aboard. The deck was covered in corpses and wounded, some severely, others not.
“Finish them all!” she barked, pointing the men with oil towards the engine. “Burn it!”
They got to work as she went to the starboard rail to watch the other boats assail the remaining engines. The archers were standing with bows drawn when the blasts of multiple horns arose from the surrounding water. The great shadow of the Volarian warship suddenly blazed with light, torches sparking to life from bow to stern, revealing a dense mass of archers crowding the deck and the rigging.
“Down!” she shouted, reaching for Arken. He gaped at the swarm of arrows now rising from the warship’s deck then dived to mask her with his greater bulk. The Volarian shafts sounded like a hailstorm as they covered the ship, Arken giving a shout of pain and collapsing onto her, bearing her down to the deck. She stared out from beneath his elbow to see four of her men pinned to the boards, pierced from head to toe. Arken grunted and tried to rise.
“The river!” Reva hissed.
Arken gripped her tight and rolled them both towards the port rail. He tumbled over as another volley descended, plunging straight into the river but she held on, wincing as the arrows smacked into the woodwork around her, one less than an inch from her left hand as it held to the rail. She paused to survey the deck, seeing no survivors amongst the men who had followed her to this ship, or the engineers they had come to kill. The engine, however, stood undamaged, gleaming from the oil with which it had been liberally spattered before the arrows fell.
Reva glanced down at the bow in her right hand, her thumb briefly tracing over the fine carvings. Sorry, Master Arren. She dropped it into the Coldiron and vaulted back onto the deck, snatched a torch from a stanchion and tossed it onto the engine, the lamp oil flaring immediately. She turned and dived over the rail, ears filled with the buzz of multiple arrows before the river’s chill claimed her. She kept under as long as she dared, feeling the warmth of her body seeping away as she struggled towards the city, surfacing to gulp air then diving under again. It seemed an age before she felt the reeds close around her, gripping the stems to haul herself from the water. She lay gasping on the bank for a long time, raising her head to watch the ship and the engine burning, its two brothers, however, stood undamaged. She could see bodies floating in the water, borne upstream by the current.
&n
bsp; “Arken!” She forced herself to her feet, stumbling along the bank. “Arken!”
As if in mockery the two surviving engines both launched at once, their stones sailing out of the black void to crash into the wall above her head, forcing her to dodge the falling masonry. It fell onto the pile of rubble below the increasingly deep rent in the wall. It was not a huge barrier, but now it seemed like a mountain.
“She’s here!” came a shout from above. “Blessed Lady Reva lives!”
She looked up to see numerous pale faces staring down at her from the battlements, a growing chorus of adulation rising from the walls as word of her survival spread.
They think it a victory, she realised, casting her gaze at the river once more. The lights on the warship were blinking out one by one, the flaming engine still burning, but not so brightly, a phrase from the Book of Wisdom looming large in her mind: War makes fools of us all.
◆ ◆ ◆
Arken had been found close to the causeway, an arrow jutting from his back and senseless from cold and blood loss. She rushed to the healing house on being hauled onto the battlement by means of a long rope. The defenders had crowded round, voicing awed appreciation, sinking to their knees, some praying openly to the Father, most just staring. Suddenly she hated them, finding their desperate belief a disgusting betrayal of the sacrifice she had just witnessed. The Father did nothing! she wanted to rail at them. I am preserved by dumb luck. I hold no blessing. Look at the corpses floating in the river, I did that.
None of it could be voiced of course. They needed her to be blessed, needed to know the Father’s sight rested on this city.
Brother Harin was washing the blood from his hands when she got to the healing house. Arken lay face down on a table, his bare flesh bone-white save for the red rivulets streaming from the partly bandaged wound on his back. His eyes were closed, but she could see a soft flutter beneath his eyelids.
“Will he live?” she asked the healer.
“I expect so,” Harin replied. “Being young and strong as an ox.”