Wytchfire (Book 1) (33 page)

Gods! Why did I do that?
He answered himself with a glib smile.
My first time leading an army. I guess I’m bound to make mistakes. Still—

A scream interrupted his thoughts. He saw the runner making his way toward them, supported by two of his friends. The young man howled with pain, a crossbow bolt sunk up to the quills in his shoulder.

“They wouldn’t listen!” cried one of his friends. “They ordered him back, but—”

“Some itchy bastard got eager with his trigger before he could take a step,” the other finished. “He dropped your note in front of the gates, but gods know if anybody came out to pick it up.” The runner howled again.

Damn.
Rowen directed his gaze up the hill, toward the gates, but all he saw was the faint glint of sunlight of helmets, cresting the battlements. He imagined a hundred crossbowmen watching them, weapons loaded, just waiting for him to get a bit closer.

He directed his attention back to the wounded runner. Someone offered to go and fetch a healer. Rowen remembered what passed in the Dark Quarter for healers and shook his head. “Silwren?”

She nodded slightly.

Rowen gave orders. The young man’s friends held him down while Rowen withdrew the crossbow bolt from his shoulder. Rowen winced—not just from sympathy, but also from dread as the man’s screams spread uncertainty through the crowds milling behind them. Then Silwren laid her hands on the young man’s shoulder. A violet glow bubbled from her hands, seeping into the ghastly wound.

The crowd reacted at once. Some screamed. Others ran. But most muttered prayers and crossed themselves with superstitious signs. Yet when Silwren withdrew her hands and the stunned young man rose, unharmed, all of them gasped. A few cheered.
Well, at least they aren’t killing us.

He stepped closer to Silwren. “If we can’t convince the king to let these people into the city, we should send them east, toward the sea.”

But Silwren shook her head. “I’ll lead them against the Throng myself. I want Fadarah to see their faces.”

The certainty in her voice surprised him. Rowen eyed the poorly armed people around them, not a one of them in armor. In a low voice, he answered, “They’ll be massacred.”

“Not if El’rash’lin and I can stop Iventine,” Silwren countered.

And if you can’t?

Though Rowen only thought the question, Silwren faced him nonetheless. “Then, Human, it will make no difference where or how far they run.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“In Jinn’s Name...”

M
idday found men along the parapets of Lyos, staring down at something they had never seen before and could not ever have imagined. Men streamed up from the Dark Quarter and crowded King’s Bend. They had armed themselves with whatever they could find: knives, farming tools, and makeshift spears. Some proudly carried crude banners before them: the cracked skull, the black knife, the red serpent, and a dozen others.

Captain Ferocles swore under his breath. For days, he had been combating a soaring desertion rate among his men.
Then, last night’s disaster. And now this!

Of course, he had been wondering how long it would take the slumdwellers to riot. He couldn’t exactly blame them, given the juggernaut of the Throng rolling across the plains. But he was not about to admit these violent wretches into his city, regardless of Aeko Shingawa’s pleas.

He signaled the archers and crossbowmen. They had already frightened off a handful of slumdwellers seeking to gain admittance behind the walls, even going so far as to wound one madman who claimed he’d been sent by the wytch to offer them a deal. But this would be worse.

Slender, steely arrows gleamed in bright, awful rows. Strings tensed, men waiting only for their captain’s signal to unleash devastation upon King’s Bend. Ferocles hesitated. He was loathe to waste so many arrows on the eve of a battle. And he doubly loathed the idea of heartening the enemy by heaping the corpses of his own people in front of the gates. Of course, these were slumdwellers, not true citizens, but he doubted the men of the Throng would appreciate that distinction.

The king would not approve, either. Not that he’s here to tell me that himself…
Ferocles frowned. The slumdwellers were moving
away
from the gates. Were they running away? If so, where were the women and children?

He turned back to the Dark Quarter, following the sounds of weeping babies, and saw the women and children solemnly watching from a distance as, with surprising order, the men from the slums marched in haphazard columns partway down King’s Bend, then stopped and formed ranks.

“Have they gone mad?” Epheus cried.

Captain Ferocles ordered the archers to stand down. He scanned the haphazard ranks more closely. He spotted three figures at the head of the ramshackle host. He swore under his breath. One stooped figure wore a cloak and hood. Another—a woman—had bright hair that glittered like quicksilver in the sunlight. The third—a man—bore a mess of unruly red hair and carried a flashing adamune before him.

“Go get Ammerhel,” he ordered. “And Shingawa, too, I suppose.” Sergeant Epheus left at once, sprinting toward the barracks. Meanwhile, Ferocles fixed his gaze beyond the sun-warmed battlements at the strange, grim host arrayed beneath him. Men without armor or fortifications, barely armed, solemnly faced the juggernaut of the Throng as it swelled off the horizon like a great, bristling stain.

Despite himself, he smiled.

Crovis glared at the scrap of paper so hard that Aeko wondered if he would tear it in two. Instead, the Knight of the Lotus laughed. “Is this some kind of jest?”

“I think not, m’lord. Locke is many things, but I doubt he’s the type to make practical jokes on the eve of battle.” Aeko turned to look out the window of what had been the office of Captain Ferocles before Crovis claimed it for himself. A faint tendril of smoke drifted in through the window, carrying the scent of charred flesh as well as burned wood.

Rowen, what in Jinn’s name have you gotten yourself into?

Crovis said, “Well, I’m sure the Red Watch crossbowman’s shot served as adequate response. The captain says they’re massing on King’s Bend. If they want to throw themselves on the blades of the Throng, let them.” He pushed the note aside. “We have no time to deal with these two renegade sorcerers now—let alone your squire.” He gave her an icy look. “We must see to the defenses before the Throng gets here and make do with what we have left.”

“Which isn’t much,” Aeko muttered.

Crovis raised one eyebrow. “Your point?”

“Just that we’re hardly in a position to refuse assistance.
Any
assistance.” Aeko picked up the message and reread it herself. “Besides, if we don’t let them in, they might turn to the Throng instead.”

“So your brilliant advice is that I let this untrustworthy rabble into the city, into the very heart of our defenses, lest they aid the enemy instead?”

Aeko thought he had a point but kept that to herself. “We have nothing left to gamble with, m’lord. We can’t hold Lyos on our own. Not now. We both know it. But if Locke is telling the truth—and on that, I can vouch for his honor—then we might still have a chance.”

“Or our ruin will come all the sooner.”

Aeko nodded. “True. At worst, we’ll die a few hours sooner. At best, though, we’ll be the saviors of Lyos.”

Crovis’s eyes sparked with newfound interest. He held out his hand. Aeko returned the message.

“I cannot be seen acquiescing to demonic influences,” Crovis said after a pause.

Aeko caught his meaning. She forced a bow. “I will see to it, m’lord. If I am wrong, the shame will be on
my
name, not yours.”

Crovis thought a moment longer and nodded. “So be it. See it done—while there’s still time. And gods forgive you if you’re wrong.” He held the message in the flame of a candle until it withered in a fresh curl of ash and smoke.

Rowen Locke glanced back at the walls of Lyos. “Something’s happened,” he said.

El’rash’lin laughed, the sound muffled by the thin white cloth he’d tied over his face to mask his disfigured appearance. “That’s quite the understatement, Human.”

“No... I mean, something’s happened
in the city
!” Rowen pointed at a thin column of smoke, deep behind the walls of Lyos.

El’rash’lin turned to look. Before he could answer, the gates of the city opened. The army of slumdwellers tensed. Was the Red Watch coming to disband them—or worse?

Rowen drew his sword, brandishing Knightswrath overhead. “Hold your positions!” He lowered his voice so only El’rash’lin could hear. “If they ride out to kill us, can you conjure up something to stop them?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“An illusion of burning Olgrym, the visage of Zet himself, a few million giant ants—hells, Sorcerer, anything!”

El’rash’lin hesitated. “Yes... but it will leave me unable to fight the Nightmare.”

Rowen grimaced. He was about to pose the same question to Silwren when Aeko Shingawa rode out of the gates toward them. A full squad of ten smartly armored Isle Knights followed her. “At ease!” he called to his newfound army. He sheathed his sword. “They’re friends.”
At least, I hope so.
“Let them pass.”

Grumbling but obedient, the armed men from the slums broke ranks, letting the Knights on horseback through. Rowen moved ahead of the Shel’ai, toward the Knights. Aeko spotted him and slowed. She tossed the reins of her destrier to the Knight next to her and dismounted. After the previous night’s rain, her boots sank into the mud of King’s Bend.

In addition to her chain-mail hauberk and azure tabard, the Knight of the Stag now wore breast- and backplates, pauldrons, rerebraces, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, tassets, and greaves. Each piece of strong, exquisite armor was emblazoned with stags and balancing cranes and the distinctive, snowy scrollwork of kingsteel.

The Knights behind her wore kingsteel plate as well. All carried adamunes
.
In addition, some carried broad, fearsome polearms that gleamed wickedly in the sunlight. Most of the Knights were no older than Rowen. They glanced uncertainly at the throngs of shabbily dressed, armed men milling around them.

I wonder how many of them used to be poor… and how many haven’t been this close to poverty in their whole lives!

Aeko freed her boots and steel greaves from the mud with a look of irritation. Rowen fell to one knee before her. “On your feet, Squire,” she snapped. She stared past him, at the Shel’ai. “Someone explain this!”

El’rash’lin stepped forward. “The king would demonstrate sense and compassion if he let these poor people behind the walls. He would also gain a few hundred fighters.”

Aeko Shingawa flinched. “King Pelleas is dead.” She gestured back up King’s Bend, at the smoke still rising from Lyos. “He was murdered last night.”

Word of her pronouncement spread among the listening slumdwellers.

Rowen blanched. “How...”

“Hacked to pieces in his bed,” Aeko said. “They came out of nowhere. Shel’ai, plus a squad of Human warriors. They slipped into the palace, slaughtered almost everyone before the alarm was raised. After that...” Grief shone in her eyes. “We lost a lot of Red Watch and Isle men—including Sir Paltrick Vossmore, my junior officer.” She cleared her throat. “The city’s been in chaos ever since. We’ve taken command as best we can. But now we know what we should have guessed days ago: steel alone won’t beat the Throng.”

Aeko went to stand before Silwren. Dark-haired Human and pale Sylv, Knight of the Stag and renegade sorceress, they regarded each other in silence. Then Aeko bowed. Taking her cue, the other Knights bowed from their saddles. Aeko stood lance-straight and said, “Silwren of the Shel’ai, on behalf of Sir Crovis Ammerhel, Knight of the Lotus, I come to you—and your companion—to formally request an alliance, and to offer you our full amnesty and protection. We swear this on our honor, in Jinn’s name.”

Rowen’s world seemed to move at a breakneck pace after that. Aeko personally escorted them through the open gates and up the stairs to the battlements, where Sir Crovis Ammerhel waited. Meanwhile, her squires and Knights herded the slumdwellers into the city, past the disapproving gazes of Captain Ferocles, the Red Watch, and the wealthy citizens of Lyos. The Islemen led the motley host straight to the armory and outfitted them with weapons and whatever mismatched armor could be found. Though tempted to remain with Silwren, Rowen knew that Aeko’s vow now protected them just as surely as the Knights’ steel, so he stayed with the slumdwellers instead.