“Northeast wall,” Nashur said. “Look! Look!”
Jezzel shoved a telescope into Nelay’s hand and she swung it around. The Clansmen from without had managed to push a breaching tower to the wall. The hooks swung down, embedding themselves in the mortar.
Clansmen spilled from the tower onto the wall, swords and hammers chopping and slicing. Men rolled to the ground, knives and fists coming out. And the soldiers held them. But they were spread too thin. Clansmen managed to break through to open the last gate that wasn’t bricked over. Others were using the Idaran’s own pulley system to open the portcullis.
“If they break through, the city will fall,” Jezzel said.
“Nashur!” Nelay called.
He hurried to stand beside her. “The Immortals won’t reach them in time.”
“Look!” Rycus cried.
Nelay watched as a group of archers on the wall ignored the Clansmen mowing them down, lit their arrows, and pulled back their wicked recurve bows. The arrows flew free, their fires temporarily disappearing as they sailed through the air.
Nelay winced when they hit their targets. Clansmen and Immortals alike were pierced, some dying immediately, others contorting in agony. It was the archers’ final act, for the Clansmen killed the last of them and kicked their bodies from the wall. Yet their arrows had flown true, striking the scaffolding of the pulley system. It was burning. But the Clansmen were still able to use it.
The portcullis inched upward, just enough for dozens of Clansmen to fit under it. They were quickly dispatched by the Idaran army. But then it crept up a little more. Then a little more, until Clansmen could fit through simply by crouching down. More Clansmen poured through. Faster and faster they came, a tide that was simply too great for the exhausted, dwindling Idarans to fight off.
“We can’t stop this,” Nelay said.
“My queen!” It was Nashur again, his normal calm underlined by a panic she’d never seen before. “The Market Gate has collapsed.”
She swung her telescope to her right to see Clansmen pouring through the broken bricks, quickly overpowering the Idarans. The telescope was suddenly too heavy for her to hold. “Sound the horns for retreat.”
For the smallest moment, everyone around Nelay stilled. She looked up to find Rycus, Nashur, and Jezzel watching her with grim faces.
“Am I wrong?” she asked.
“No,” Nashur said, defeat weighing down the word. “We’ve lost the city.”
He motioned to one of his men, who ran to a column. A small pipe Nelay had never noticed before stuck out the side.
“Cover your ears,” Nashur said even as he followed his own advice.
Nelay pressed her palms to her ears as the man blew. The whole tower seemed to vibrate with the sound of the massive horn. As it slowly tapered off, Nelay lowered her hands, her ears ringing.
The soldiers began steadily retreating.
“And they will all come to the palace, soldiers and citizens?” Rycus asked quietly.
“How will they all fit?” Jezzel asked incredulously.
Nelay took a deep breath. “Have you seen to the palace’s defenses?”
“Weeks ago,” Nashur stated.
“Sir,” one of the Immortals cried. “We’re trying to move the citizens to the gardens behind the palace, but the people are clogging up the palace gates.”
Nashur wiped the panic from his gaze. “Send down fifty men. Keep them moving.”
“We’re trying, sir, but there’s simply too many of them.”
“Open the palace doors,” Nelay said. Then they wouldn’t be jammed up against the palace.
Nashur looked at her in surprise. “They’ll loot and destroy.”
She shot him a look. “Thieves are the last of my concerns at present.”
He gave the order. As soon the palace doors opened, the citizens streamed inside. Nelay steeled her courage and looked back through her telescope.
Two more gates had fallen, and Clansmen streamed into the city in a constant wave. The Immortals, who were well trained, retreated in an organized fashion. Behind them, the general citizens fled toward the palace.
Taking a deep breath, Nelay swung her gaze back to the Clansmen. They were looting. Even as she watched, a little boy jumped from a second-story window and took off. A Clansman brought him down with a single swing of his axe.
She gasped and lowered the telescope. It fell from her fingers, clattering on the ground. “Nelay?” Rycus said.
She leaned against him, her eyes closed. “They’re murdering my people—a little boy.” She couldn’t finish. It was her fault. Somehow, somewhere, she’d missed a player, and it had cost her people everything. Great shudders rocked her body. Her heart was racing too fast. She couldn’t breathe.
Rycus half supported, half carried her down the stairs. The moment she was out of sight of her commanders, the sobs took over, until Nelay could no longer walk. So he carried her.
Halfway down the stairs, she managed to wriggle from his arms. “Rycus, I have to go to Suka.”
“No. We can figure this out. There has to be another way.”
Jezzel and the rest of their guards were silent behind them.
“I don’t want to do this, but I don’t see—”
Rycus took Nelay’s face in his hands. “I just found you. I’m not going to lose you again. Give me a chance—give us one more chance to fix this. Please.”
She looked into his pleading eyes and couldn’t say no. He must have seen her acquiescence, for he turned to Jezzel and said, “You keep her from doing anything foolish. Swear it.”
She gave a tight nod. It must have been enough, for he pressed a kiss to Nelay’s forehead and bolted down the stairs.
The healer knelt before Nelay in the library. Though she could feel the pull of the bone needle and the thread, the stitching of the wound didn’t hurt. When the woman finished, she bound Nelay’s arm.
Jezzel pushed open the doors and stopped a good distance away, as if hesitant to approach.
“What is it?” Nelay said.
Her friend cleared her throat. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Nelay rose heavily from the chair and followed Jezzel down the long corridor, which was guarded by a pair of Tribesmen, to the crowded throne room. Hazar and Ahzem moved before her, clearing a path. Nelay had made it halfway across the room before the people began to recognize her. The crowd pressed in on all sides, so tight she feared they would crush her.
A little girl grabbed Nelay’s left hand and begged her to send the Clansmen away. An old woman demanded Nelay send Immortals back into the city for her son and his children. An old man marched toward her, bent around Hazar, and spat in her face, screaming that the city falling was her fault.
Jezzel drew her swords and held them to his belly. “I will kill you.” He looked down at the blades and back at her, but he held his ground. “As a priestess of the goddess, I swear I will kill you where you stand. Now move!”
His nostrils flared before he slowly stepped to the side. Hazar and Ahzem had also drawn their swords. Nelay was tempted, but she couldn’t see her way to killing the people she’d tried so hard to save.
Suddenly, Cinab, Bahar, Ashar, and Delir were there, easing their swords from their leather scabbards. The people backed away, clearing a path for them.
“Where did you four come from?” Nelay asked in relief.
“Rycus sent us to fetch you,” Bahar responded.
“Letting the people in the palace might not have been a good idea.”
“Nashur tried to warn you,” Jezzel said as she made eye contact with some injured Immortals and waved them over. Though battered, bruised, and limping, they came to their queen, putting another barrier between her and the mob.
The group stepped into the courtyard. Citizens still streamed inside the gates. The Immortals quickly shuttled them around the palace toward the back, to the expansive grounds.
“Thank you,” Nelay said to the Immorta
ls and Tribesmen.
One of the Immortals met her gaze. “They don’t know what you’ve done for Idara. But we do.” He nodded in respect and resumed his vigilance.
Jezzel glanced back as if making sure Nelay was still following her as she started up the wall’s steep steps. At just over five stories tall, this wall was only about half the height of the city wall.
Rycus already stood at the top, as did hundreds of Idarans bearing some form of weapon. Nelay moved to her husband’s side, looking out across their once-great city. Half of it was overrun by Clansmen. The Idaran line of defense had condensed as the distance between soldiers shrank, allowing for a more orderly retreat.
Jezzel pointed. “There, do you see it?”
Nelay didn’t need a telescope. About a league from the palace gates, a pocket of a few hundred Immortals, soldiers, and citizens had become stranded in the midst of the Clansmen. Trapped between buildings, they fought on two fronts, desperately trying to hold the line.
They were faltering. Nelay took in all the players before her—the angry mob in her palace, the retreating Idarans, the people watching beside her, the hopelessness a physical presence all around them. Her mind spun, nudging the players this way and that until they all fit together. And then she had it. “Sally out and bring them inside,” Nelay said.
Rycus turned to her in surprise. “Just as many men might be lost retrieving them as they will save.”
She met his gaze. “We lost the Thanjavar. Thousands of our people have died. If I can give them one victory, their courage will not fail them.”
She turned to go, but Rycus gripped her upper arm. “The only soldiers inside the palace walls are those who were injured. If you force them back into that and they don’t return, you’ll face a mob.”
She deflated a little. “What do you suggest?”
“Volunteers.”
Nelay moved to the edge of the wall looking down at the crowded palace courtyard and shouted, “Citizens of Idara! Immortals!”
“Don’t forget us,” Ashar grumbled.
“And Tribesmen!” Nelay added.
When the din didn’t settle, Jezzel banged the flat side of her swords together. Once she had everyone’s attention, she cried. “Queen Nelay!”
Nelay reached up and pulled the curving sword from her back. With it in hand, she looked at over the people clustered below. “Tonight, I have seen the majesty of Idara. When faced with the overwhelming waves of our enemy, any other army would have broken. Ours has not.”
She paced before them, giving them back their broken pride one piece at a time. “I watched as they delayed the horde so that our people might flee. Even in defeat, they were not defeated.”
She pointed behind her. “Even now, a cluster of hundreds of Idarans are trapped in the midst of the Clansmen. They are fighting—and I have a feeling they will fight to the last man.”
Now she had to give them a goal—something achievable. “I cannot order you to save them. You are exhausted to the brink of collapse already, many of you injured. But I know my armies. I know my people. They will not leave their fellow soldiers and citizens stranded. And so I ask for volunteers.”
Some of the people below Nelay straightened. She knew what she was—what she had to be. She was hope. And hope was a powerful thing. More powerful than an army. More powerful than the fear of death.
A woman stepped forward. She had to be in her forties, her hair gray at the temples and her body softened by children. “I was an Immortal once. And I would be proud to be one again.”
More women came forward, by the dozens. The Tribesmen joined them. Priestesses streamed from the temple gates with armfuls of training weapons, which they immediately began passing out.
Nelay caught their gazes, one after another, tears shining on her cheeks. “You, each of you, are mine. And I am yours. I will fight with you. And perhaps some of us will fall, but not all of us.”
They cheered and stomped their feet, creating a rumbling she could feel in her bones. “And our fellow Idarans will not fall, because we will not allow them to.”
She turned to Rycus and Jezzel. They were tightlipped, their faces hard. “Have you lost your mind?” Rycus asked.
Nelay took a deep breath. “I know it must sound that way, but trust me when I say I have to do this.”
“You can’t,” Jezzel said.
Nelay pushed the tears off her cheeks. “I am hope. If they cannot see me, cannot feel me, they will fall, and we with them.”
Jezzel knew her well enough to know how methodical her plans were, but this had to go against every instinct she had. “If our queen falls, what do you think that will do to them?”
Nelay chuckled bitterly. “Then I will be a martyr and they will fight even harder.” When Jezzel still didn’t relent, Nelay stepped toward her. “I was almost mobbed earlier, Jez. I have to do this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Rycus said.
She met his dark gaze. “One of us needs to stay. They can’t lose us both.”
He pushed past her. “I’m coming.”
Nelay knew that short of tying him up, there was no stopping him. Steeling herself, she turned back toward the crowd. “If this be the end,” she said loudly, “then it will be an end to remember.”
Those willing to fight gathered in front of the temple. Rycus ordered large rectangular shields and wicked-sharp spears be brought from the priestesses’ arsenal. He briefly told the volunteers how the Tribesmen used shields to create a wall, spears piercing from above.
Nelay was not given a spear or a shield—she wasn’t tall enough to use either effectively. Jezzel positioned her in the center of the volunteers, all of whom were angry or proud or simply past fear.
Ahzem and Hazar took up positions before and behind her, Jezzel at her side. Ashar, Bahar, Cinab, and Delir stood protectively around Rycus, who wore the robes of the tribes. Over the top of that he wore mismatched Immortal armor. He certainly didn’t look like a king.
He wouldn’t look at her, and anger pulsed from him in waves. She slipped closer and touched his back. He stiffened before turning to her. She stared deep into the blackness of his pupils and thought she caught sight of his soul in their dark depths. Tears filled her eyes. She loved him. As the sun loved the sky, she loved him.
He softened a fraction and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. They stood like that a moment, Nelay holding his wrists, he holding her head. Then he gave her a gentle push to take her place before turning to face forward again.
As she moved back to Jezzel’s side, relief washed through Nelay. Even though Rycus disagreed with her, he hadn’t withheld his affection.
“Fire and burning, Nelay, you are in love with him, aren’t you?” Jezzel was aghast.
Nelay managed a watery smile. “Wasn’t part of our plans, was it?”
“Just so we’re clear, my plans haven’t changed. I have my eye on a few Tribesmen. I figure if I play it right, I can rotate between at least three of them.”
Nelay snorted. “Maybe just one at a time.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, woman,” Jezzel said in mock anger.
From just in front of her, Rycus called out the signal and they jogged through the open gate in a spear formation, their shields forming a wall around them.
“We’re both coming back from this,” Jezzel said, all trace of humor gone.
Nelay knew if anyone could hold off an army with sheer stubbornness, Jezzel would be the one.
Nelay was shorter than most of the formation, so she could not see ahead or behind, only the bobbing heads and the two- and three-story buildings surrounding her as they traveled down the gradual slope. She nearly tripped over Delir’s big feet and decided then to keep her eyes on the flagstones, glancing up only to see where they were.
At less than a half a league from the palace, the formation slowed. “What’s going on?” Nelay asked Rycus, who was tall enough to peer over the heads in front of him.
“We’ve reache
d the Idaran line.”
The Idarans parted to let them through. There was a brief, intense fight and then they broke past the Clansmen and behind enemy lines. They ran until Nelay’s legs felt floppy and her breath sawed in and out of her throat.
A dozen streets past the defensive line, they reached the trapped Idarans. Their group staggered to a halt, the men at the front holding their shield walls while the men behind them stabbed at Clansmen from above. Their flanks were protected by the building’s solid walls.
Nelay’s hands were sweating on her grips, and her body itched to swing them. To do something besides being blind and trapped inside.
The fighting slowed and Rycus called for the formation to change. Their wedge-shaped head split into two, allowing the bloody and beaten Idarans to stagger behind their shields. The group was mostly women and children with a smattering of exhausted Immortals and soldiers, who became a flash of broken noses, blackened eyes, sweat, and fear. Nelay pointed back the way they’d come. “Stay together! Head for the palace!”
As they streamed past, Nelay caught sight of an old woman being carried across the back of a young man. Their gazes locked, and beneath the grime and blood, Nelay could have sworn she saw Havva.
“Fire and ashes,” Jezzel swore beneath her breath.
Nelay whipped her head back around. Behind the fleeing Idarans, the full force of the Clansmen was coming, cutting down anyone in their path.
Rycus’s gaze locked on the Clansmen, his face tense as he waited. Finally, he called for their formation to wield back together one measured step at a time.
The formation clipped back together. The men holding the shields let Idarans who were mixed with the Clansmen slip through while the Idarans stabbed down at the Clansmen from above.
“Retreat!” Rycus ordered.
The shield bearers took orderly steps back while the spear wielders continued stabbing from above. If the shield wall buckled, they’d be overrun.
They managed this for a few blocks, arriving at the place the original defensive line had been. They were gone, their steady retreat always taking them closer to the palace.