Stormed Fortress (91 page)

They had reached the stone pier. Cattrick stopped, braced for the sword
'
s finishing thrust. He chose not to plead.
'
If you won
'
t defend to buy time for the citadel, you will have to strike. I won
'
t change coat now for coercion.
'

The moment paused, hanging, fraught with the echoing, triumphant shouts of armed enemies, burst through to the unmanned dry dock. Against the oncoming noise of invasion, a thin ring of steel sheared the gloom.

'
I saw Arithon
'
s face, after bearing your word that Feylind
'
s brig was pinned down with all hands aboard.
'
The truth written there had surpassed all deceit: that Rathain
'
s prince had no shield against honest tears for the unalloyed sorrow of casualties. Fionn Areth stepped forward, sword sheathed at his side, and offered his steadfast apology.
'
I
'
ve got tinder, if you need my help with the oil. Then count on my stand in the passage.
'

* * *

Paired as they had been through much of their professional lives, Vhandon and Talvish matched desperate strides through the tangled streets of the dock quarter. They had outdistanced the cohort of garrison men, stripped by necessity from the melee on the walls: a fighting force that could ill be spared, called away to thwart the imminent threat to the shipworks
'
broken rear postern. Pounding at a sprint, strained lungs burning in the frigid air and feet skidding on icy cobbles, the two captains shared the grim certainty that the Koriathain
'
s made decoy of Arithon would be found embroiled at the site of disaster.

'
I
'
ll kill him,
'
gasped Vhandon, ripped raw with remorse.

Talvish just ran, having nothing to say. Both men had given their friendship to the surly Araethurian. They had done their utmost to mentor his conflicted character, beyond any other green recruit because, like Arithon, they had believed in his salvage. The trauma that had mauled his innate identity and twisted his idealism into contentiousness had been a flaw born from cruel exploitation.

To the end, all had striven to keep an unbroken integrity with the victim, that he might build his own footing for trust.

Now that kind-hearted mistake came to roost. The reckoning impelled the most harsh acknowledgement: that, all along, the grasslander was the made instrument of the Prime Matriarch
'
s fashioning. In life, his sole purpose had been viciously crafted to snare the Prince of Rathain. Excuses were forfeit, before the staring fact: danger stalked Arithon without remission in the long shadow cast by his enemies. The anguished captains spurred their brutal pace. However the weir at the cut had been breached, that event posed the crippling blow to drive Alestron to final defeat.

Once invaded, the cavern defences could not be recouped. The dry dock gave the enemy a defensible access, with the warren of sewers too extensive to flush without crippling losses. A mass influx of sappers would mine under the cliffs. Before the walls crumpled, no more could be done but hamper the final incursion. Allow Sevrand
'
s forces enough borrowed time to stage a doomed retreat to the upper citadel. The crushing impact of impending conquest could scarcely be mourned, far less measured.

The heroic effort of two driven men could not cross the sea quarter any faster. Past the wharf-side
'
s dark shop-fronts, through the cramped gutters between masonry warehouses, and under the railed balconies of the back-alley brothels that no longer roared with the lusty abandon of deck-hands on leave, Vhandon and Talvish rushed ahead with a will fit to burst mind and sinew. The awareness, that all they had done was for naught, added torment to searing exhaustion.

'
Think of your brave daughter!
'
gasped Talvish, not able to bear the mute agony on Vhandon
'
s face.
'
She is far from this place, and quite free. She chose life! Arithon
'
s summoning granted that grace. Remember her, above failure!
'

Alestron might fall. But the Light
'
s hollow cause could never obliterate the record of Bransian
'
s unbroken defiance. Because Arithon had come, Vhandon had a legacy: grandchildren who would grow up in peace, informed of the citadel
'
s resistance. Unlike his lost eldest, a son who had farmed and been killed by the blast of Lysaer
'
s suborned power; or his tempestuous youngest, who served yet under arms with the duke
'
s elite guard.

'
For Fionn Areth?
'
snapped Vhandon, not one whit consoled.
'
The Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn shall not be told! Let his Grace never know whose black-handed ingratitude caused our undoing.
'

Around the next corner, both veterans coughed, eyes streaming under the roil of smoke choking an avenue well-known since their boyhood. Guided by instinct, lashed by cruel grief, they pressed forward on guts and necessity.

Their fight must deny the Prime Matriarch
'
s prize. Accord between them required no words: Desh-thiere
'
s curse, and the meddling of Koriani politics drove Alestron towards hostile conquest. Citizens would be on fire to lay blame. As their anguish turned in reproach on the Masterbard, they would accuse Arithon for the suffering heaped on the undermanned garrison.

'
Can
'
t spare his Grace from public censure unless we take the grass-lander first,
'
Talvish said in grim assessment.

'
Too much has gone wrong,
'
Vhandon agreed.

Brothers in arms, they raced past the shut doors of the guild-hall, where excise stamps with the s
'
Brydion blazon had endorsed fair commerce throughout an unbroken succession. Beyond lay the arched postern that guarded the maze of the underground sewer.

The night street between as yet remained empty. No hordes of armed enemies charged from the gap, yet.

'
Ath bless!
'
gasped Vhandon.

He and Talvish drew their swords as one movement. Shoulder to shoulder, they rushed down the ramped passage. The steel gate within was not locked or guarded. But an oncoming clangour of weapons scattered echoes off the vaulted conduit. Somewhere ahead, a living defender sweated in hard-fought retreat.

Talvish forced his reserves and quickened pace.
'
If that
'
s the sentry, he
'
s sorely beset
'

'
Tiring, also,
'
Vhandon observed, his trained ear attuned to the sword-play.
'
Else wounded.
'
Through the stressed ring of steel, hazed to frenzied crescendo, he added,
'
Won
'
t leave him to enemies, whoever he is. Hold at the grille!
'
Without further word, he shoved onwards into the gloom.

'
Damn your fool heroics!
'
Talvish followed, fraught to match Vhandon
'
s gruelling lead.
'
You
'
re not going alone!
'
As fragmented swearing sliced back up the corridor, he flashed his most insolent grin.
'
No, friend! I don
'
t take your ranked orders, since I
'
m no longer Duke Bransian
'
s officer.
'

'
Alestron might suffer for that change in loyalty!
'
Yet Vhandon
'
s barked protest failed to shake off the blond swordsman
'
s insistent protection.

At the bend, where a pine-knot torch should have burned, they encountered an empty bracket. The mooring rings wore severed knots: someone
'
s ingenuity had taken the pole-boats and rigged them for incendiary tinder. A cloud of black smoke billowed up the drained passageway, rank with burned oil and noisome, singed meat. The screams were not pretty as men burned alive, ambushed by the conflagration.

Talvish coughed.
'
You hear? They
'
re cursing the Spinner of Darkness for sabotage.
'

'
Here
'
s hope!
'
Vhandon snarled.
'
Perhaps they
'
ve mistaken the rat-handed goatherd for somebody else! Confusion to the enemy.
'
He ploughed into the murk and bellowed ahead.
'
Friends of the citadel!
'

The feat with the oil was not going to last. Fouled air and dizzying exertion sapped stamina. Ragged footsteps approached, in flight where the glow of set flame stained the fumes lurid orange. Backlit by the pall, two blurred figures rushed upward, both of them doubled and choking. As the fire subsided, more stymied enemies pursued, crowding in numbers behind them.

The man in rear-guard whirled at bay. Sword steel spoke again: alone, without armour, that berserk defender challenged the on-coming fray.
'
Go on! You can
'
t help!
'
he screamed after his running companion.

The other, still wielding an oar as a bludgeon, dropped the shaft and clenched a ripped forearm. His clothes were a craftsman
'
s, sodden and rent. He belted onwards up the drained sewer, determined and rasping for breath.

'
Run!
Shut the grille!
'
The yell was Fionn Areth
'
s. Unable to glance backwards, engaged beyond fear, he reeled through lightning parries, forced into back-stepping retreat. He fought beyond hope. No swordsman
'
s prowess could surmount such pressure. Only slow the inevitable, a harried bone in the teeth of the crushing onslaught about to roll over him.

'
Cattrick?
'
snapped Talvish, wrenched out of stride as the wounded fugitive slammed headlong into him.

"We
'
re undone.
'
Through blood and soot, carved bone deep and in agony, the burly southcoaster sagged to his knees.
'
Koriathain kept a secretive hold on my shipwrights. Must have done, since the affray at Riverton! They were suborned. Forced to suicide and made to turn our own fire-ship against us. I
'
m sorry. The dry dock
'
s overrun by the enemy! We were two, up against a pitched company.
'

The whine of a quarrel creased through the clogged air. Unarmoured flesh caught the marksman
'
s cruel accuracy. Cattrick jerked and crashed over like a kicked post, wracked to spasms in Talvish
'
s arms.

Ahead, Fionn Areth still laboured, engaged on all fronts by Alliance shock troops. Brute men in full arms, outfitted for hacking assault on the walls, with straight blade and spiked axe. However brave, no single hand with a sword could hold the tight corridor against them. Somewhere down the passage, the enemy bowman would be furiously cranking to span his discharged weapon. That one would, at cool leisure, pick off the nuisance that snarled the Alliance advance.

'
My fight!
'
Vhandon shouted over his shoulder.
'
Tal, I
'
m equipped for this fracas. You
'
re not.
'

Painful truth: still on posted duty, the older captain wore his breast-plate and mail; his blond partner, reassigned as crown liegeman, had no more than strapped bracers and studded brigandine.

'
Tal
v
ish, no nonsense!
'
Vhandon cried in the breach.
'
Save your prince. Take the rear-guard. For all of our sakes! You must go back and secure the postern!
'

Before Talvish could shed the killed weight of the shipwright, Vhandon
'
s forward charge clashed with the brute swing of the axe-man. His solid parry came in saving time. Fionn Areth recouped his slipped footing, rallied, and resteadied his stroke in the grace of relief.

'
Go back, Tal!
'
Vhandon pealed, now committed past argument.
'
Man the gate!
'
Matched shoulder to shoulder in practised defence, the grey-haired captain sensed the grasslander
'
s rhythm. He compensated by professional instinct. Allied with his protege
's
strength and untried weaknesses, he matched stroke for stroke in the gruelling press. Trusted fate, as if his left side relied on the skill of a veteran comrade.

One instant, for sight to record the bright moment, as the Araethurian reached for his latent potential, quickened by confidence to skilled refinement. Given his place, he rose to match the dauntless experience of the man beside him.

'
I
'
ll hold your retreat!
'
Talvish cried in ripped anguish, while the clash of stressed metal commingled with blood scent, and the reek of the dying befouled the corridor.

Vhandon objected.
'
You have one task left!
'
To the other grown man he had taught, who dauntlessly matched his prowess in battle, and who claimed the respect of a lifelong friendship, he pleaded,
'
Talvish! Get topside! Aid Sevrand
'
s relief. Then go on and serve where you
'
re oathsworn! If you can, if the garrison holds, tell my son that I pass with no thought but a father
'
s love for him.
'