Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (22 page)

Sorayas heart chilled at the thought—Hrum soldiers sweeping through the cobbled streets, slaying any who tried to fight. All the people of Mazad had resisted their conquest. The Hrum would take every man, woman, and child into slavery … including her Suud friends. Thunder cracked and Soraya flinched, then willed herself to calm, shutting off her prickling awareness of the storm.

“But what Commander Birzan and Governor Nehar
don’t
know,” said Markhan, “is that Kaluud and I have been talking to some of the other guardsmen—very quietly.”

“You could tell who wasn’t happy with the way the governor was handling the defenses,” Kaluud added, “though they couldn’t complain—all the squadron commanders are loyal to the governor. Markhan and I were careful to approach the guardsmen slowly, but a lot of them have come over to our side.”

Markhan nodded. “Almost a third of the men Nehar thinks are loyal to him are actually loyal to Farsala. Nehar never pays any attention to his inferiors, so Kaluud and I were able to gain their trust. They’ve pledged themselves to our—to your command, sir. When that morning dawns we will hold the gate, for Mazad and for Farsala!”

His voice rang with deghan steel and deghan pride, and Soraya’s eyes blurred. The peddler, she noted, looked sour. Well, let him! It was deghans, true deghans, who had discovered Nehar’s plans—and would thwart them too!

“Your loyalty,” said Commander Siddas, “and that of your followers, is a fine, rare gift, and I accept it with pleasure. But you say that only a third of the governor’s guard will side with us?”

Kaluud and Markhan exchanged glances. “Not quite a third,” Kaluud admitted. “But almost.”

“We can’t be sure how many of us will be assigned to the gate, either,” added Markhan. “Kaluud and I will be there, because we’ve pretended to be the governor’s men from the start. But the others … we approached those men because we could see they weren’t pleased with Nehar’s attitude, and I’m afraid Commander Birzan noticed them too. He has to assign some of our people to the gate, or he might not have enough men to open it and hold it till the Hrum get there. I think he’s betting they’ll obey their officers, since they won’t have time to think. But few as we may be, our swords are yours to command, and we will die to a man before we fail you.”

This is honor.
Soraya’s heart swelled.
But still …

“The odds against your lads will be at least two to one,” said Siddas, rather dryly. “Maybe even worse. I’m honored to command your swords, most truly, but I’d rather see you alive and succeeding than dead and trying.”

“What else can we do?” asked Markhan. “Birzan is watching the placement of units. If you start shifting other troops in toward us, he’ll know that you know. And he said something about contingency plans. I think they have a backup plan in mind if this fails, to let the Hrum come over the walls in some other place. The gate is just their first choice.”

“And I can’t afford to pull men off any other stretch of the wall,” Siddas said. “If the Hrum launch an all-out assault, which they likely will if their trickery at the gate fails, I’ll need every man I have fighting at his own post. But what other choice do we have?”

“As to that,” said the peddler slowly, “I believe I have an idea.”

T
HE
H
RUM MARCHED
against Mazad, and Sorahb himself Dueled their treacherous governor, Drawing the circle of challenge in the earth around his feet and bidding the man to come and fight. When the governor did so, Sorahb slew him—but the death of their spy did not stop the Hrum, who redoubled the force of their attack.

The soldiers on the walls were sore pressed, and all through the long day Sorahb fought with them. His mere presence lent them courage and strength, for so it is with men when a legend fights beside them.

But late that afternoon, after many marks had passed, even their great hearts began to fail. Sorahb saw this and despaired, knowing that only a miracle could save them. Perhaps the prayers of a legend are greater than those of ordinary men.

T
HE LADY
M
ITRA
and her daughters rode toward the gate, the silk of their embroidered overrobes streaming in the cold breeze. The afternoon’s rain was approaching. Mitra was supposed to have left several marks ago, but she’d taken the time to have her hair braided up with expensive glass beads. She’d taken still more time to pack the bundles carried by the horses and the one bewildered groom who accompanied them. It was far more luggage than even a deghass needed for dinner.

The lady Soraya had told Kavi that the woman had packed up the family valuables, but she must have brought more than just her jewelry to make up all those bulging bundles. Even the youngest daughter, her lips pouting in furious rebellion, had a pack strapped to her horse’s rump.

It made them look like folks fleeing a disaster, which was why the governor had tried to avoid it. Even their rich clothes didn’t detract from that impression. When the people had left the suburbs for the safety of the city walls, many of them had worn their best clothes as well—it was the most practical way to carry them.

In truth, Kavi didn’t begrudge the lady Mitra her valuables. The gold and jewels she carried couldn’t be eaten, nor melted and reforged as weapons, so they meant little to Mazad—and if the Wheel turned ill for her, she might be needing them herself. Nehar’s treachery would soon become common knowledge in Farsala. Kavi doubted that the governor—the ex-governor—would survive it if it weren’t for the Hrum’s protection.

As for the impression the lady made today, that hardly mattered at all. Fully half the folk who had gathered near the gate to watch her ride out were Kavi’s people, and they knew exactly what was going on. Even if he hadn’t known them from the time he could toddle, Kavi would still have been able to pick them out—they were the only ones cheering with enthusiasm. Fortunately, there were so many of them that no one stood out.

The men in the tower beside the gate cranked up the portcullis as the lady Mitras party approached, and then opened the massive wooden doors.

From his place at the back of the crowd Kavi could only see a small portion of the Hrum force that was already marching out to
meet her. They had to cross the width of the rubbled plain—which had been a prosperous suburb before the Hrum burned it and then cleared away the wreckage to create a field where they could fight.

“They’re carrying long fence-divider things covered with cloth.” The lady Soraya stood on tiptoe to see over the crowd, though she was already standing on the steps of the corn chandler’s shop, where Kavi had taken his position. “I wondered how they’d disguise the ladders. I think they look pretty suspicious, myself. They’re decorative enough, like long banners, but the Hrum don’t go in for decoration much.”

Kavi looked at the patched skirt the girl had borrowed from a puzzled kitchen maid, and suppressed the comment he’d been about to make, that decoration was more of a deghan thing than a Hrum one. In truth, Farsalan peasants went in for decorating things more than either the deghans or the Hrum. If you had to paint something anyway, why not use a cheerful color and add a bit of pattern to it?

While he was being truthful, he also had to admit that the lady looked as comfortable in a servant’s worn skirt and blouse as she had in her silks. She’d looked even more at home in the boy’s britches she’d worn among the Suud.

At least she’d had no trouble staying behind. Even the lady Mitra had been forced to admit that she couldn’t bring Commander Merahb’s daughter to a Hrum dinner.

When Soraya had asked to be present at the gate this morning, Kavi had pointed out that there was little she could do in the coming fight. She’d promptly replied that a man whose right hand couldn’t grip a weapon wasn’t going to be of much use either.

It was different for Kavi. It was his plan. But he had to admit she was right; there was nothing he could do now except watch the thing unfold and pray that it didn’t come apart.

The water carrier was already atop the wall—he was the only one Kavi had been able to station there, where his folk would be most needed. But even as the portcullis rattled down and the great doors swung shut, Nibbis the soup seller pulled her handcart and kettle up to the tower door and knocked.

“Will they let her in?” the lady Soraya asked.

“They should,” said Kavi. “She often sells soup to the men on duty, and it’s cold today.”

He had asked the woman, whose hair was gray for all that her body was stout and strong, to yield her place to her youngest son. He could claim she was sick. But Nibbis had declared, firmly, that any change at such an important time might make the soldiers suspicious.

“Yes, but those men know they’ll be fighting in a few moments,” said the girl beside him. “Will they be hungry? Will they want to encumber themselves with a woman in that space?”

Kavi shrugged. “Our folk will argue for letting her in, no matter
what the commanders say—and they can’t afford to arouse suspicion either. She’s the only nonsoldier who comes into the gate tower this time of day.”

At least the water carrier on the wall was so familiar that no one would think of repelling him. But the girl was right—Nibbis had encountered some resistance. She stood in the doorway, with one of her small, portable kettles under her arm, arguing with someone inside.

But the argument between the street sweeper and the two carpet weavers put her efforts to shame. Those three were the only people involved who Kavi didn’t know well. A trio of traveling acrobats, they’d been trapped in Mazad by the Hrum siege when one of the men had sprained an ankle; his brother and sister had refused to abandon him when he was unable to escape before the Hrum arrived. Siddas said that for folk not trained as soldiers they’d done good work on the walls, and they could get themselves up to the top more rapidly than any of Kavi’s other fighters.

Those fool deghans and their men would need all the help they could get—when watch assignments were finally announced, the odds against them had turned out to be close to three to one. But neither Markhan nor Kaluud had hesitated for a moment, not that Kavi had seen. He sighed. He hated the folk they represented, but he couldn’t fault their courage.

“You’ve got to have the street swept,” the acrobat wielding the
broom argued. His voice carried like that of a man playing for a crowd—which he was, though he wasn’t supposed to show it. “You don’t want that fine carpet dragging in the muck, now do you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped the girl who carried one end of the carpet. “It’s wrapped around this pole—it can’t drag.”

Kavi had been listening for the Hrum charge, in the long minutes since the lady Mitra had ridden out, but the sound that finally met his straining ears was not the fierce drumbeats of the Hrum’s signal, but the soft vibration of hundreds of running feet.

It was followed, barely a moment later, by Farsalan cries of warning and alarm. Given that both Nehar’s and Siddas’ guardsmen knew about the Hrum’s plans, it was probably the most expected surprise attack in Farsalan history. But since both sides had orders to act surprised, it didn’t make much difference.

Watching the guardsmen on the walls, Kavi found he couldn’t tell which were Nehar’s and which had been subverted by Markhan and Kaluud. They all reacted with brisk competence, pulling out the forked poles they’d use to push away the scaling ladders, shouting down orders to bar the inner gates and for the men in the tower to bring the kettles of pitch—always kept warm—to a boil.

The tower that protected the huge winch that raised the portcullis was where the battle would truly be decided, Kavi knew. Markhan and Kaluud had only been able to get themselves and one
of their men assigned inside it. So if Kavi’s folk were going to help them, they’d have to clear Nehar’s men from the top of the wall and get into the tower fast. But not so fast that they gave away their knowledge of Nehar’s plan too soon—it was for the young deghans, who had taken the most dangerous and most important job, to judge the best moment to start the fight inside the tower.

Kavi found that his left hand was clenched into a fist, and his weak right hand was clenched as far as he could close it. He took a breath and tried to relax—just as the Hrum army reached the walls.

They didn’t have much effect, as far as Kavi could see.

Farsalan archers fired down, and Hrum arrows arced over the walls as well, but the angle was so sharp that none flew near the steps where he and Soraya stood.

Still, the few ignorant citizens who had come to watch the lady Mitra ride out hurried away now. Some of them would be assigned to assist the soldiers on the walls, and the others would want to see to the safety of their homes—though now that the winter rains had started it would take a near miracle for a fire arrow to set anything alight.

The tower door slammed shut in Nibbis’ face. She squawked with outrage and rapped on it, arguing with the men inside that they weren’t likely to be in the fighting and could still use a bit of soup. Would they leave an old woman out in the street with an attack on?