Sovereign (59 page)

'Your Majesty,' Duke Amptra greeted her, bowing deeply.

'Dear Uncle, the Twenty Houses have outdone themselves.'

'We are always ready to serve the throne,' he said.

Aye, but not necessarily the monarch
, she said to herself, understanding the distinction.
But what of that now
? she asked herself, and thought of the army about to attack them.
Nothing
, she answered herself.
Nothing at all
.

Edaytor Fanhow came through the main gate, carrying his weight well despite his puffing. He bowed to Areava, gave a nod and half a smile to Olio.

'How go the theurgia on the city's behalf, Prelate?' she asked him.

He looked despondent. 'Pitifully, your Majesty. Every spell they make is easily defeated by a counterspell from whatever magikers Lynan's army has employed.'

'They must be Chetts,' Charion said.

'How can they be?' Edaytor asked. The question was rhetorical and no one answered. 'They have no formal structure to control and employ magik. I can only think they are using magikers from Haxus, although none of us had any idea they were this far advanced.'

'Then we will rely on our strength and courage,' Duke Amptra said, but in a subdued voice that almost suggested strength and courage would not be enough.

'I will need your knights as a reserve,' Areava told the duke. 'Keep some mounted as a flying column.'

She made for the gate.

'Where are you going, sister?' Olio asked.

She looked at him in surprise. 'To the wall, of course. My place is by my people.'

'Your Majesty, you cannot do that!' Galen said, shocked.

'And why not?' Areava demanded frostily.

'You are our leader,'- he explained. 'You cannot afford the luxury of risking your life on the front line. You must stay here and command.'

'Command what? What order would you have me give? We hold the enemy at the wall or we lose the city.'

Against that there was no argument. Galen and Charion glanced at each other and nodded simultaneously, 'Then we will come with you,' Charion said. 'If the wall is good enough for one queen, it can bear the honour of supporting two.'

'And where Charion goes, so go I,' Galen said.

Areava smiled at them. 'Very well.'

'And me!' Olio cried. 'Don't leave me out of this!'

'You are the holder of the Healing Key, brother,' Areava said. 'And if I fall you must take over. Your place is here where you can do the most good.'

'But—!'

'No, Olio!' Areava said sharply. 'That is a command.' She went to him then and held him to her, and whispered in his ear: 'Please, sweet brother, obey me in this.'

Olio swallowed. When Areava let him go he stood straight and nodded. 'I will obey you in all things, your Majesty.'

'You have always been my strength,' she said. 'Knowing you are here will make what comes easier to bear.'

Constable Arad had almost finished inspecting the wall. Everything he had seen of the Royal Guards showed him they were determined to do their duty. They looked splendid in their blue uniforms, although the braid and cloaks and fancy helmets had all been discarded, replaced by good, strong pot helmets, round shields and breastplates. They were ready with spear and javelin and sword for anything the outlaw Prince Lynan could throw against them. For a while now they had watched the Chett cavalry slowly and cautiously wind its way down the escarpment. Arad had resisted the temptation to carry out a raid against them when they were so vulnerable because he knew there would be archers on top of the ridge ready for just such a sortie, and he had no archers of his own to counter their volleys. By midmorning there seemed to be the equivalent of six or seven regiments in the short space between the wall and the foot of the ridge. Arad could not help wishing Areava or one of her ancestors had fortified the top of the ridge instead of the city itself.

Still, he kept on telling himself, they were horse archers, not infantry, and they would not know the first thing about scaling walls. Then he remembered that the inhabitants of Daavis had probably thought exactly the same thing.

He had just under a thousand Royal Guards at his disposal for the wall, a structure half a league in length. Instead of putting them all on the walkway he kept three companies up in reserve in the centre, not far from the wall's only gate. He knew Queen Areava was arranging other reserves, but did not know what she intended to do with them.

With luck
, he was telling himself,
we will hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the southern provinces
. It would take two or three days for the fleet to reach Storia and Lurisia, and then a day to load up with infantry and another two or three days to return. About six days all up. With a lot of luck, yes, he could hold. After all, he was in command of the Royal Guards, the best soldiers on the continent—

The air was suddenly filled with the sound of several thousand bowstrings being loosed at the same time. He jerked his head to the right and saw a dark cloud lifting from the enemy regiments, reach high into the blue sky, stay suspended there for an instant, and then plunge back to earth, straight towards him and his guards. He, like all the others on the wall, watched hypnotised, but something in Arad shook loose and he shouted: 'Down!', and brought his shield up over his head as he squatted against the parapets. He could not help squeezing shut his eyes. Arrows clattered against his shield, on the stonework. He peeped out from underneath his shield. He saw two guards down, one dead with an arrow in the neck, the other wriggling on the parapet with an arrow in his stomach.

'Hold that man!' he cried, but too late. The guard was squirming so violently he tipped over the edge. His scream was cut off by the ground below.

Cursing, Arad risked standing up and looking over the parapet, just in time to see another volley loosed. 'Down!' he cried again, and this time all on the wall hunkered down beneath their shields.

He wondered how long this would go on for. The Chetts would have to run out of arrows eventually, but the effect on the morale of his guards would be dreadful.

'They are all hiding like turtles,' Gudon said happily to Lynan, pointing to the wall.

'Good,' Lynan said. He put a hand on Ager's crooked back and Gudon's good one. 'Now, my friends.'

The two men grinned. They dismounted, an action copied by every Red Hand and every warrior in the Ocean Clan, waited for the third volley and then rushed forward twenty paces. They stopped, and when the fourth volley was loosed covered another twenty paces. In this way, the sound of their approach covered by the storm of arrows, they made it to the base of the wall undetected. Another volley and their ladders went up.

That was the signal for the archers to lower their bows, and for the assault proper to begin.

'It's stopped!' one of the guards called out, the relief clear in his voice.

Arad was not so sure. He waited a while longer before risking standing up again. He looked over the parapet and found himself face to face with a Chett. He screamed involuntarily and whacked down on the face with his spear shaft. The Chett countered it with a short sword and then was over and on the walkway. Arad had time to retreat a step and lower his spear before another Chett appeared. He lunged at the first, impaling him, then desperately tugged at his sword. The second Chett was now over the wall and advancing, but another guard had seen the danger and thrown a javelin. The Chett gasped and fell forward, the javelin wobbling in his spine.

'Up!' Arad yelled. 'Up! The enemy is on the wall! The enemy is on the wall!'

The guards still hiding under their shields stood as one just as a tide of Chetts washed over the parapets. Arad flung himself at the closest, knowing something desperate would have to be done or the guards would not be able to hold the wall for the next hour let alone six days. He slashed down with his sword, slicing through a Chett shoulder, tugged the blade free, cut to his right and felt his whole arm jar as the sword missed its soft target and bit into stone. A short sword scraped off his breastplate. He lashed out with his shield, felt it connect with something more yielding than the wall, then jabbed underneath the rim with the sword point. There was a squeal, and a dark figure disappeared off the edge.

Arad knew he was just reacting, and forced himself to think calmly even as part of his brain took over the function of defending himself. He quickly scanned the walkway. The Chetts outnumbered the guards, but the guards were better protected and better armed, and he told himself it was alright after all—his side could deal with this assault. Then he noticed that the greatest concentration of Chetts was near the wall's only gate, the same gate he remembered Sendarus and the Kingdom's first army marching through last spring on its way to save Hume from Haxus. If the enemy got control of that and let in the main force of Chetts, nothing would save Kendra. He descended to the ground by the nearest stairway and ran as fast as he could in his armour to the three companies kept in reserve. They were watching the battle on the wall, desperate to join in, but knowing that if they moved now and were needed somewhere else later on they could lose the city. The company captains received the constable's arrival with huge sighs of relief.

Arad ordered two companies to go directly to the gate and hold it at all costs. The other he led up the walkway he had come down and threw them against the enemy. The fighting was fierce, and the guards used every weapon at their disposal: spears, swords, the edges of their shield, their mailed fists and their booted feet. The Chetts resisted fiercely, but the Royal Guards were better protected and took greater risks than their foe. Step by step the Chetts were being sandwiched between Arad's force and the two companies that had now reinforced the gate.

We're going to do it
, Arad told himself.
We're going to hold the wall
.

Ager realised the Chetts were going to be thrown off the wall soon. Unless the gate was opened and reinforcements let through, they would have to start all over again, and this time at a much greater cost. He managed to fight his way to the gate, arriving at the same time as a company of Royal Guards. The tide was definitely turning against the Chetts now, and Ager looked around desperately for some way to regain the initiative. He noticed the guards on the walkway above the gate were being led by a short, wide-shouldered man who never lost a fight. He caught a glimpse of the man's face.

Sergeant Arad, he recognised with a shock. A good man. A very good soldier.

Ager managed to retreat from the battle in front of the gate itself and climb back up the walkway. He used all his skill with a short sword to force his way over the gate to the other side. Guards kept on trying to slice and skewer and slash him, but he dealt with each attack coolly, dispassionately, not looking at their faces because he knew some of them had been his friends. There was a sudden break in the fighting, and Ager found himself directly facing Arad himself.

'Sergeant!' he called out.

Arad looked at the crookback with surprise, and then with something like disdain. 'Not Sergeant, Ager Parmer, but Constable!'

'Better you than Dejanus, who I'll bet won the office for murdering Berayma!'

'Don't twist history to justify your betrayal of Grenda Lear!' Arad shouted back. He raised his long sword and advanced on Ager.

Ager waited until Arad was close enough to take a swipe at him and leaped forward, putting himself well inside Arad's reach. He lunged with his short sword, but found it blocked with the guard's shield.

'I remember your tricks with the short sword,' Arad said, and drove down with the pommel of his own weapon. Ager dodged aside, but caught the blow on his right shoulder. He roared in pain. Arad quickly drew his sword arm back to stab Ager, but the crookback leaped forward again and at the same time threw his short sword from his right hand to his left and thrust at the guard's midriff. Arad retreated a step, slashed down with the shield. Ager sidestepped, slipped and fell onto his knees; Arad's sword whistled above his head. He slashed at the guard's legs, his blade biting deep into the right calf muscle.

Arad shouted, fell back again, but his right leg gave way and he fell forward. Ager lifted his short sword and drove it up with all his strength. It sank to the hilt into Arad's stomach. The guard gasped, toppled sideways. Ager pulled out his sword and placed it against Arad's throat. 'I'm sorry, Sergeant,' he said, and pulled the blade across. Blood sprayed across Ager's face as Arad's breath hissed out of the wound.

'The constable is dead!' Ager shouted. 'The constable is dead!'

The Royal Guards did not know who had shouted the words, but the effect was immediate. Each guard felt his heart grow heavy and his courage diminish. None retreated, none turned their back to the enemy, but it was enough. Ager charged into them, his sword seeming to take a life with every thrust, and behind him his Chetts redoubled their efforts. The guards started to fall back.

Areava, Galen and Charion were halfway to the wall when they heard fighting break out. They ran the rest of the way, reaching the battle out of breath and with pools of sweat settling in their boots and gloves. All three quickly assessed the situation and realised how desperate it was. Areava drew her sword, shouted 'To me! To me! Kendrans to me!' and charged towards the knot of warriors struggling around the bar to the bronze gate. Galen and Charion drew their weapons, shouted their war cries, and flanked the queen as she drove into a knot of Chetts trying to get their hand on the bar to slip it out of its bracket. She hewed right and left, not waiting to finish off those she wounded and maimed but pushing on to free the gate of every enemy. She could hear the muffled sounds of swearing and screaming warriors all around her and above her on the walkway. The guards, realising the queen herself was now among them, regained their courage and morale and started fighting back as if they were suddenly possessed by demons. The Chetts could not hold out against them, and started losing ground.