The Queen of Mages (58 page)

And when Amira heard the first scream, her
heart fell. She was with the group nearer the northwest corner of
the city, and the scream had come from the east, from where Razh
led the other of the students in their defense. But she could not
run to see what had happened, or this group too might lose someone.
She hoped Razh was keeping the rest of them calm—

A thunderclap struck ten yards from the
wall, shaking the air and making Amira stagger. One of Edon’s
mages, a man, had gotten his bead terrifyingly close. She had been
just about to dispel it, but he’d triggered it early. She was still
perceiving this when another thunderclap struck, off to her left,
then another to her right.

And then the wall lurched beneath her feet,
and stone rained from the sky.

Four thunderclaps. Dardan’s head whipped up
at the sound.

“M’lord?” Liam looked up from the map.

Dardan realized he had his sword half out of
his scabbard, and slid it back in. “Come on.”

Out in the square, a hundred men stood
assembled. Half of them were city constables or men who’d once
served in the army, and the rest were conscripts: merchants,
traders, carpenters, grocers. Men of Elland. What good they’d be
against a thousand royal soldiers, Dardan didn’t know, but Elland
could not be left defenseless.

The men buzzed with anticipation. Their
commander, Captain Yorn of the city constables, saw Dardan emerge
and called attention at once. Just then a rider came pounding up, a
young man; gasping, he said, “The north wall… has fallen!”

“Then to the north wall, at once,” Dardan
called out, and swallowed down the bile that had clawed up his
throat.
Amira. Aspect of Despair, let her be unharmed.
Every
available horse was being used to ferry messages around the city,
so Dardan was reduced to running on foot with the men they’d
gathered. At least he had armor; Count Razh had been happy to
provide him with a set of light chain. It wouldn’t stand up against
plate, but it would give him greater mobility.

They’d arranged two other companies, one
positioned near the north gate and one nearer the south. If Edon’s
men got into the city, it would be house-to-house fighting. Dardan
had studied that, if one could call reading old accounts of coastal
pirate raids “studying.” He’d also read about sailing ships, but
only a fool would conclude that he was therefore qualified to
captain one.

But he was a count, and so a count led the
men through the empty streets of Elland. Everyone not engaged in
the city’s defense had retreated into their homes, shops,
malthouses, inns. The desolation collided with Dardan’s memory of
Wintergift, the streets full of celebration and life. He plainly
admitted to himself that he was terrified. He winced when he heard
more thunderclaps, this time clearly coming from ahead of them,
toward the city wall.

The men at his back would not see his fear,
and if Liam saw it he said nothing. His
valo
had changed in
their time apart, Dardan could tell. Some of his humor had
vanished, though he remained as dutiful as ever. He wondered what
Liam wasn’t telling him.

They soon came around a curve in the road
and could see in the distance a sight that doubled his terror. A
gash as wide as five men scarred the wall of Elland, as if a
colossal sword had swung down from the heavens and cleaved through
the wall to its foundation. Men in the mail of the royal army
poured through the gap.

But they were disorganized, flush with the
thrill of the breach. “Charge!” Dardan shouted, and his company
raced forward, weapons high.

The first few royal soldiers saw them
coming, and formed into something like a line, but there were not
enough of them, and they broke before the charge. Dardan himself
cut down two men with precise slashes and had just knocked over a
third when a huge thunderclap sounded overhead, and for a moment
everyone stumbled, disoriented, Ellander and royal soldier
alike.

Dardan peered around. A man in common
clothes perched on the rubble beneath the wall. He wore no
soldier’s mail, only a leather vest. Dardan did not recognize
him.

The man died with a smile of victory on his
lips as a dagger sprouted in his neck. Dardan twisted to see Liam
with his arm outstretched. “Mage,” Liam said, “and not one I
knew.”

The soldiers and city defenders all around
him had begun to recover from the mage’s attack. Dardan’s company
had completely lost its formation; men of Elland were now mixed in
among royal soldiers, and men on both sides fell before the blades
of their opponents. Dardan swung wildly at a trio of enemy soldiers
who had spread out to encircle him, looking for an opening. They
never got it; one by one, they suddenly jerked and fell to the
ground, dead.

Dardan looked up at a vision of blood and
golden hair perched on the edge of the battlements. Amira, his
wife, glared down with the wrath of a god.

The whole crowd gazed up when she howled
wordlessly at them, a howl that did not end until every royal
soldier on this side of the wall had dropped dead. In seconds, only
Elland’s defenders still stood inside the walls.

For the moment, no one else came through the
gap. Dardan crawled over the rubble of the wall to beneath Amira.
“Jump!”

She clambered over the edge and dropped down
into his arms. Blood covered half her face. In a panic, he tried to
wipe it away, hoping that she had not taken a fatal wound.

On closer inspection, it was no more than a
small but bloody gash in her cheek. It would keep for now. “What
happened?”

“Broke through,” she said, half sobbing and
half shouting.

Dardan looked up at the wall. No one else
moved up there that he could see. “Who…”

“I don’t know. Everyone… I don’t know…” She
scrubbed at the blood and tears on her face. “We can’t stop them
now.”

Liam stepped over. “Captain Yorn is dead,”
he informed Dardan tonelessly.

“You take over,” Dardan decided at once.
“Men!” he shouted. “My
valo
is to lead you now. He has
served in the army. Follow him as you would have your captain!”

Some of the men nodded dully. Others stared
with horrified fascination at Amira. Liam started shouting to get
their attention and get them formed up again.

Amira pulled away from Dardan’s grasp and
started digging through the rubble. “What are you doing? We need to
retreat!” Dardan said.

“I’m not leaving them here.”

Dardan gritted his teeth and climbed after
his wife. “The enemy could come through at any moment—”

A movement in the gap made him reach for his
sword, but he stopped when he saw who it was: Francine, her dress
torn and half fallen off, some of her hair missing, and one arm
dangling uselessly at her side. She bore a fierceness in her eyes
that made Amira’s earlier fury look like mild annoyance.

The girl clambered over the stones toward
them. “I fell over the wall when the blast hit, m’lady,” she said,
her voice apologetic despite her dire appearance. “I had to fight
my way back through. I think they’re pulling back now. I had to
kill four or five before they took the hint.”

Dardan stared. “You killed five soldiers
after falling twenty feet off a wall?”

“No, m’lord. Five mages.”

Amira’s jaw looked as if it had come
unhinged. “You killed five mages
by yourself?
”

Francine blushed. “Well… to be fair, they
were a little distracted…”

Amira’s laugh was incongruous amidst the
carnage and wreckage. “You continue to amaze me. But we need to…”
She grunted and began to dig again.

Dardan peered out through the gap. He
glimpsed royal soldiers in a pack some distance off; perhaps
Francine’s rampage really had made them rethink their strategy. At
the very least, she had bought the Ellanders a few minutes.

Between the three of them and a handful of
city defenders Amira dragooned, they found the corpses of five
other mages. When they found Garen’s body lying broken amidst the
stones, his legs a bloody ruin, Amira fell to her knees and wept.
Francine burst into tears and flung her good arm around Amira.

Despair touched Dardan. Garen had been a
wholly good person, and did not deserve what life had brought him.
Dardan said prayers to the Aspects of Despair and Sacrifice, hoping
to ward off the feeling. “We must go,” he said to Amira. “They will
come soon.”

“We will come back for him,” she proclaimed.
“For all of them.” She touched Garen’s hand one last time.

Liam had gotten the men formed up into a
semblance of order. “M’lord, we haven’t much time.”

Dardan nodded. He felt a pit in his stomach
and tried to ignore it. Where had they planned to fall back to if
the wall were breached? His breath came fast and shallow and he
doubled over for a moment, breathing hard.

Amira was suddenly at his side, grasping his
arm and helping him up. Something about her grip pushed away the
dread that had enveloped him. “There’s no stopping Edon and his
mages from entering the city now,” he said after a moment. “As much
as they outnumber us, I think our only chance is to isolate the
mages and pick them off one by one. We should draw back, then
strike once they come through the breach.” His fear had transmuted
into resolve. He had escaped death twice already today, and he
would not dwell on when his luck might run out.

Amira nodded. She had begun to lean against
him at some point. The bleeding from her cheek had slowed, and she
absently wiped at it. They would have to deal with that before it
putrefied. If they survived that long.

Dardan and Liam corralled all the surviving
defenders and marched them a hundred yards away from the wall,
around a corner and into a square where they could hide out of
sight. A few men were positioned to watch the wall and report when
Edon’s men started coming through again.

Perhaps sixty of the Ellanders were still in
fighting condition. Of the mages who had been on that section of
the wall before it exploded, only Amira and Francine had
survived.

———

They waited a little while, but the scouts
reported that Edon’s men were making no move to enter the city.
Dardan wanted to know what had become of Count Razh and his mages,
so he left Liam in charge of things and led half a dozen men off to
the northeast. They found Elland’s count atop the wall, near the
north gate. Razh saw him coming and waved at Dardan to come up the
stairs.

The sun had climbed high. A clear azure sky
kissed the crowns of the Stormrest Hills, clearly visible in the
northwestern distance. Dardan could see that Edon’s army had
concentrated itself at a spot a few hundred yards straight out from
the breach in the wall. They were certainly planning to enter the
city there, although they had not yet formed up into ranks.
“Perhaps they’re breaking for luncheon,” Razh commented. “I suppose
even our vile enemy needs to eat.”

Dardan could barely bring himself to grin.
“Amira agrees that there’s no chance we’ll keep them out of the
city now. I’ve set up something resembling an ambush near the
breach they made. I would suggest pulling your group back as well,
perhaps for a second ambush, but it’s hard to hide you mages from
one another, what with that light.” Dardan gestured at Razh’s
head.

Razh shrugged. “It’s possible to keep one’s
head turned to avoid exposing the light, but… that’s tricky at
best. We’ve so far found nothing that blocks the light. Not wood,
not stone, not steel. Anyway, I think we’ll do more good up here,
especially if we keep our distance from the breach. It might
convince them to funnel through it instead of trying to make
another hole, and then perhaps your ambush will do some good.”

“If the Caretaker wills it,” Dardan
muttered.

Razh smiled. “I don’t think the Caretaker is
especially fond of his flock killing one another. Take two more
mages with you. Lady Amira will appreciate the support, I think.
We’ll try to come find you once the enemy enters the city.”

Dardan sighed and made a prayer to the
Aspect of Courage. He clapped Razh on the shoulder and went back
down the wall, grabbing the first two mages he saw, which happened
to be Jeffrey and Emma.

They returned to his ragged company. He had
just told Amira about his conversation with Razh when a scout
signaled back to them. Edon’s men were coming.

“The four of you should place yourselves on
the other side of the street,” Dardan said. “If there’s mages with
whoever comes in, they’ll probably see you hiding over there, and
think the main body of men is with you too.”

“You want us all alone? As bait?” Jeffrey
said, looking alarmed.

“Bait that’s fiercer than a hundred ordinary
men. Take some archers, too. The bulk of our men will fall upon
them from the rear. Move!”

Amira started to go, then turned back and
stretched up to kiss Dardan quickly. “Do not die,” she ordered
him.

“I will do my best.” And just then, for the
first time in his life, he knew what abyss he would face if he lost
Amira. Even the Aspect of Despair could not know the depth of that
feeling.

He squeezed her close, letting go only when
she squawked. “I am not unmarked today,” she protested, pushing
back.

“Sorry. I only just now figured out what I’m
fighting for.”

Despite the blood and ash and pain and
anguish, her smile lit his soul. She squeezed his hand one more
time and was gone, striding across the square with mages and
archers at her heels.

———

Their warning came when several loud cracks
sounded in succession, followed by the clatter of collapsing stone.
Dardan peered around the edge of a malthouse to see the breach in
the wall now thrice as wide. Edon’s push came fierce: royal
soldiers flowed in a torrent through the gap, led and protected by
mages. The enemy soldiers pooled before the wall and formed into
ranks. After only moments they began to march toward the
square.

The ambush descended into chaos almost from
the start. Someone on Edon’s side had the sense to send small
groups to scout ahead, and it was one of these that spotted Amira
and her mages first. Dardan wasn’t certain, but he thought that one
of the men with the group was a mage. The man wore no mail, only a
leather vest over wool and a plain gray wool cloak. He wielded no
sword, either.

Liam had gotten the defenders arranged in
the nooks and crannies among the buildings around the square. The
small enemy scout group was intent on Amira, and so was another
such group coming around from the other side of the smithy they’d
hidden behind. The archers with Amira let loose, taking out several
royal soldiers, and Dardan guessed that Amira and her mages were
dueling somehow with Edon’s mages, though of course he couldn’t see
it.