Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (26 page)

The fires were gaining more ground even though no more pots of stickily sodden, flaming rags were smashing on roofs or in alleyways.

How long before the Bonebreakers launched a third assault on the gate, despite the archers up above? As soon as they realised they were fighting for their lives, Tathrin guessed bleakly.

What would Aremil think of this? Would he have argued against such a barbaric plan? Or would he have agreed with the brutal necessity, as Tathrin had been forced to? Either way, he imagined he'd see the truth reflected in his friend's thoughts when Aremil finally learned what they had done. When he recovered from his illness.

Tathrin refused to contemplate any other outcome. He knew Failla had nursed his friend with every possible care on that agonisingly slow journey back to Carluse Castle. Master Welgren was tending him now and the apothecary had saved the lives of men despaired of on the battlefield. Curing a winter ague was hardly beyond his skills.

Granted, this had been an unusually persistent fever but it had finally broken once Aremil could be properly cared for in a bed. After that, well, however strong his will, there was no denying his bodily weaknesses. They must leave him far less able to recover as swiftly as someone more robust like Tathrin. No wonder Aremil had been sleeping ever since, only rousing briefly for some sustenance. It was ludicrous to imagine he'd be able to master any Artifice this side of Winter Solstice.

Though Tathrin couldn't entirely shake the suspicion there was something Kerith wasn't telling him, in their brief, brusque exchanges across the aether. He would be glad to get back to Carluse once this distasteful task was done; to see Failla and to see Aremil for himself.

'Watch out!' The crossbowman beside him ducked as an arrow sliced through the night.

Some Bonebreaker had found a bow. More arrows followed. So had the Bonebreaker's friends.

Tathrin crossed to the outer face of the wall. Down below, he saw a couple of wounded Ashgil militiamen being helped back out through the postern. They were tended in comparative safety as fresh men slipped inside to reinforce the shield wall still holding the archway.

'Hear that?' Gren shoved at his shoulder to get his attention.

'What?' Then, faint in the distance, Tathrin heard hollow thudding.

'Someone's sober enough to remember those little doors,' Gren observed cheerfully.

Tathrin managed half a grin. Because those oak doors piercing the walls opened outwards, from a jamb of carved stone recessed into the masonry, all the better to resist an enemy's battering ram from outside.

So the first militiamen to follow, once his chosen band had slipped unseen into the town, had been ordered to hurry along the walls, to hammer wedges and spikes under and around each lesser door between the main gates, to frustrate all attempts to open them up from within.

So now it was the renegades who were desperately trying to wield some improvised ram in the cramped confines of those passages. While Lescari militiamen were waiting outside like cats at a mouse hole, lest any of them succeed.

'Ready?' Gren called.

'Steady,' warned Sorgrad.

Tathrin joined them where the wall-walk around the battlements reached this wider platform on top of the gatehouse. None of the handful of men now running towards them wore the cream and yellow kerchief of Lescar's army. That made them the foe.

Gren ducked low to stab the first in the groin and Sorgrad's blow swept the man away through the crenellations. Tathrin used his greater reach to smack his blade hard into the side of the following man's head. If he wasn't already dead as he fell, he would be when he hit the cobbles.

A bolt from the crossbowman now leaning over the corner of the gatehouse took the next one in the neck. The renegade close behind shoved his stricken comrade bodily at Gren. The brothers stepped back, forcing Tathrin to retreat. The last two renegades advanced.

'Where do you think you're going now?' Gren demanded, incredulous.

A fair question, it distracted the first man for the instant it took Sorgrad to stab him through the thigh. He collapsed to his knees, lifeblood spurting over the stones. Seeing the last only wore a leather jerkin, Tathrin swiftly ran him through the heart.

He stooped to clean his sword on the man's cloak. It bore a bird badge. 'Swallowtails?' He glanced at Sorgrad.

'And Triple Knot.' Gren cut the complex woven token of cord from another dead man's shoulder.

Straightening up, Tathrin assessed how much fighting was now joined up on the battlements. As fast as his army had been to seize the gatehouses, they had known some renegades would reach the various stairs that ran up inside the walls to access the heights.

But reaching the wall-walk still left those renegades with nowhere to go but risk the killing drop to the snowfields beyond, unless they'd had the forethought to bring a rope. These Swallowtails and Triple Knots had precious little room to fight to retake the gatehouses, whether or not they were still trying to hold the town or simply wanted to use the invaders' own ropes to escape.

In the ruddy light of the consuming fires, Tathrin saw skirmishes flare up around the battlements. Men toppled into the darkness, some screaming, some limp and silent. How many of those were his own?

Down below, the Bonebreakers resumed their assault on the militia holding the archway. Once again they were beaten back towards the encroaching flames. How long would it take, Tathrin wondered bleakly, before all the renegades were dead, whether by fire or sword?

Would any of them surrender? Would any of the Lescari soldiers let them, passing up the chance of revenge for all the endless years of suffering such mercenaries had inflicted on their hapless land? No, he didn't think he'd be dealing with many prisoners, come dawn.

'Tathrin!' Sorgrad pointed through the sooty orange glow towards an unnatural blue flare.

'Where's that?' Tathrin answered his own question. 'The Deflin Gate.' A second blue light kindled, and a third.

'They've forced it open.' Sorgrad shook his head.

'Or had it opened for them.' Gren already had a leg over the battlements, his sword sheathed. 'Andarise always was a greedy bastard. That's a Tormalin gold crown you owe me.'

'Only if you find his pockets full of silver,' retorted Sorgrad.

'The reserve will have seen that signal.' Tathrin was seeking reassurance as much as offering it.

'Let's go and make sure.' Gren disappeared down a rope, lithe as a squirrel.

Better safe than sorry. Tathrin followed him down the ladder.

Good fortune could still confirm the justice of their cause. If Sergeant Andarise had proved a broken reed, whether his men had opened the Deflin Gate for whatever gold or silver the renegades were throwing at them, or if they had been overwhelmed, at least some trusted mercenaries had managed to signal a warning of that calamity.

Trusting his gloves to save him from rope burns, Tathrin slid down the last few spans of the ladder. Landing with a thud, he ran after Sorgrad and Gren, as fast as he could on snow trampled hard and slick.

He had insisted their reserve force wait between the Triolle and Deflin roads, to give them the best possible chance of intercepting any renegades who managed to break through a gate. He had held back many of the most experienced mercenaries to strengthen that contingent: Shearlings and Tallymen, allied with the Triollese militia who'd most distinguished themselves on that arduous march north to Ashgil.

Just as long as those warriors weren't too stiff and slow after waiting in the winter cold. As long as they could catch whatever force of renegades was making a dash for freedom along the Deflin Road. Otherwise all this long murderous night could have been for nothing. When he finally saw the Triolle Road Gate ahead, the cold air burning his lungs, Tathrin tasted bile at the back of his mouth.

He spat it out and shouted at the Adel militiamen tending their wounded in the soiled slush. 'Every third man fit to fight, follow me!'

That gate was still securely held but he could not risk stripping away all its defenders lest whatever renegades remained within got some second wind.

The stretch of wall now separating them from the Deflin Road Gate was longer still. They ran on. Gren veered to avoid bodies spilling out of one of the narrow passages piercing the wall.

Tathrin saw two men slam the oak shut and brace themselves against it while a third jammed it closed with a broken sword. He could only assume they were his own and ran past without a word.

Blue light cast eldritch shadows across snow stained with blood. Bodies sprawled still and broken. The fight for the Deflin Road Gate had been fierce. Who had won?

Tathrin saw that only half of the double gate stood open. The other door was still resolutely closed, jostling figures within the archway silhouetted against the burning town. Tathrin could hear shouting but he couldn't make out the words.

A man ran from the shadows, brandishing a blade. Tathrin saw the militiaman's yellow and cream kerchief and tugged at his own, knotted around his neck.

'Peace for Lescar!' His words were lost in a cough as the wind swept smoke into his face.

The oncoming militiaman hadn't seen the kerchief any more than he'd heard Tathrin shout the day's battlefield password. Yelling ferociously, the man swept his arm back, ready to bring the blade crashing down.

Tathrin stepped in close and punched him hard in the chest, sending him staggering, sword flailing uselessly.

'Peace for Lescar!' he snarled at the man. 'What's happened?'

'Captain Sayron?' The hapless man gaped. Hastily gathering his wits, he gestured towards the gate. 'Reskin's and some Boot Snakes, veterans, they rushed us on horseback. They got through, and some on foot, but we drove the rest back,' he insisted.

'Where's Sergeant Andarise?' Even as he asked the question, Tathrin changed his mind. 'Never mind.' He turned to the men who'd followed from the Triolle Road Gate. 'Half of you, strengthen them here. The rest, with me!'

At least the escaping renegades had left an easy trail to follow, hobnailed boots and hooves alike pocking the unsullied snow. Each sapping step should slow men and horses both. Tathrin could only hope so.

He hoped his own strength would hold out long enough to catch them, and that of the men valiantly following him through this endless night. Even Sorgrad and Gren were looking grimly weary now.

Tathrin led his small force into the darkness. They soon left the blue reflections of Aldabreshin torches and the ochre glow of the burning town colouring the snow. He struggled to pick out the line of the smothered road across the moonlit ground ahead. The countryside was latticed with hedges and patched with copses, black against the white.

What had the escaping renegades decided? Would they be lying in wait to attack? Hiding up in hopes of dawn? Or getting as far away as they could?

'Horse!'

As Sorgrad shouted, everyone halted.

A handful of mounted men appeared from the far side of a coppice, black cloaked against the cold.

Men surged up behind Gren and Tathrin. Halberds bristled, one blade cleaving the moonlight perilously close by Tathrin's head. Lescar's militias had learned hard lessons on defending themselves against cavalry over these past few seasons.

Instead of charging them, or taking to the hazardous fields in hopes of cutting around to the town, the riders slowed to halt a prudent distance ahead. The foremost threw back his hood, moonlight gleaming on his shaven head.

Sorgrad shoved a halberd pole aside and stepped forwards. 'Hanged Man?'

Now Tathrin saw the pale smudge of a badge on the riders' black tabards: the gibbeted corpse of the Gallowsfruit blazon.

The tall mercenary captain rode closer. 'Captain-General Evord's compliments and we hold the Deflin Road. You may conclude your business in Wyril.'

Sorgrad laughed. 'He must know your birth festival's Winter Solstice, long lad. He's brought you an early gift!'

As the weary warriors behind Tathrin raised a ragged cheer, the Hanged Man grinned wolfishly. 'Juxon's Raiders have camped on the Draximal Road and the Sundowners hold the Tyrle Road. Wyvern Hunters block the way to Triolle.' He fixed Tathrin with an unreadable look. 'Captain-general's compliments and he would like a word with you.'

'Gladly.' Relief left Tathrin light-headed. He turned to the men clustered behind him and picked out a burly halberdier wearing a badge made from half the Wheelwrights' blazon and half of the rebellion's ring of hands. 'Sergeant, take these men back to the Deflin Road Gate.'

The man sketched a brief salute. 'Gladly, Captain.'

'How far--' But as Tathrin turned to talk to the Hanged Man, the handful of mercenaries were already riding away into the night.

'So we're on our own two feet. Come on, long lad. ' Sorgrad began loping after them. 'Don't keep Captain-General Evord waiting.'

Tathrin opened his mouth to protest, then forced his leaden feet to a jog instead.

'How lucky is that?' Gren trotted at his side, grinning from ear to ear. 'He just happens to be marching north and he's run into all this trouble on the road. One of those Boot Snakes must have sorely offended Halcarion.'