Furies of Calderon (76 page)

Somewhere close, Tavi heard the scream of a horse, and Tavi turned toward it, his eyes widening. He slipped past a stout old holder hauling a wounded
legionare
back out of the main knot of combat in the courtyard’s center, to find a knot of horses, riders wielding spear and blade and forcing their way across the courtyard.

“Hashat!” Tavi shouted.

The Marat’s head whipped around, white mane flying, and she flashed Tavi a fierce smile. “Aleran!” she called, her voice merry. Her eyes snapped into place above him, and she hissed, tightening her legs on the back of her horse. The beast plunged forward, all but bowling Tavi over, then reared. Tavi looked up in time to see the Knight Aeris that had been coming for him slash at Hashat and miss, only to have the Marat’s saber whip across his face. The man shouted, clawing at his eyes, but he managed to thrust himself up higher into the air, bobbing drunkenly away from the courtyard. One of the other warriors spun with one of the heavily curved Marat short bows in his hands, and loosed an arrow that felled the Knight from the sky.

“Bah!” Hashat shouted at the archer. The man only grinned at her, drawing another arrow. She lifted the bloodied saber to her teeth and extended a hand to Tavi. “Up, Aleran!”

Tavi took her hand and was startled by the slender woman’s strength. She hauled Tavi up to the light cushion of a saddle the Marat used, wrapped one of his arms around her waist, and shouted to the warriors near her in a tongue he could not understand. Together, the horses turned and plunged toward the outer wall, forcing their way through the crowd of screaming beasts and men.

“What is happening?” Tavi shouted.

“Your people have been forced back onto their wall!” Hashat shouted. She shrugged, and Tavi saw a number of loops of black cloth over her shoulder— the dark sashes worn by the enemy Knights. “Wolf and herd-bane were closest to the walls. Our people are fighting their way here through them, but it might take time. We are helping your people get onto the wall or to fall back to the other courtyard!”

As Tavi watched, the butt end of a spear scythed through the air and took one of the mounted warriors of the Horse Clan from his saddle, dropping him into a knot of herd-bane warriors. One of them plunged a glass knife into his throat, and then as blood fountained from him, grasped his pale mane and cut it from his head together with the scalp.

Hashat, seeing this, let out a piercing scream of pure rage, her horse rearing and plunging its hooves at the chest of the fallen herd-bane warrior. The man dropped, screaming, one side of his chest warped oddly. One of the other Marat raised his spear, but Hashat lifted a hand, spitting a command. The spearman nodded and whipped the spear down at the Marat, its tip leaving a long cut over the Marat’s ribs. He slashed again, into an
X
, and then the horses surged on.

“Because we will not lose Ishava’s strength. We marked him. After the fight, Aleran, we will partake of that herd-bane and let Ishava rest.”

Tavi blinked and stared at Hashat. The Horse headman’s dark eyes gleamed with something hard and savage, and she only smiled when someone hurled another spear at her, and she had to raise up on her stirrups to cut it out of the air with her saber.

They reached the wall, but the press of the combat had forced them to the northwest corner of the courtyard, where part of the wall had collapsed when Doroga’s gargant had come charging through it.

“Doroga!” Tavi shouted. “Where is Doroga?”

“Out!” Hashat responded. “We got him onto his gargant and sent him back to his people.” She looked around the courtyard and shook her head. “We cannot remain here long, Aleran. The Wolves and herd-bane are being forced inside your walls by our people.”

“My friend!” Tavi said. “Fred! Tall boy carrying a spade! He’s back by the stables! You have to help him!”

Hashat looked back at Tavi, expression dark. Then flashed him a brilliant smile. “I will help him. Now, Aleran. Stand up. Hold on to my shoulders.”

Hashat rode close to the crumbled section of the wall and looked up into the sun to see figures moving up there. One of them dropped a rope down. Tavi stood up, his arm throbbing where he had been cut, his feet on the Marat saddle, his hand on Hashat’s slender, strong shoulders. He shoved the gold-handled dagger through his belt and grabbed on to the rope. Hashat glanced up at him, then kicked her horse into motion, leaving him swinging in the air, as whoever was up above began pulling the rope up.

“Fade!” Tavi exclaimed.

Fade let out a happy hoot and hauled Tavi up onto the broken section of the wall. The slave’s scarred face twisted into a grotesque smile, as he grasped Tavi’s shoulders and then hurried him up onto the battlements, away from the edge of the broken walls.

At the top, several
legionares
crouched upon the battlements, panting and exhausted. None were unwounded. They crouched with their backs against the crenellation, their shields held between them and the courtyard below. Bernard crouched there, too, but rose to come to Tavi and clutched at his arm fiercely. “Tavi!”

“Uncle! Where’s Aunt Isana?”

Bernard shook his head, his face pale. “We got separated.” He took the boy’s shoulders and guided him up against the crenellation, pressing him to crouch against the stone, and kneeling with his own body between Tavi and the courtyard. Tavi looked out at the battlefield outside the fortress, awed. He had never seen so many people, much less so many people struggling to kill one another. The battlefield outside was as confusing a jumble as the one in the courtyard, but on a far grander scale. Gargants screamed and bellowed in the distance, plowing a slow but steady path toward the walls, while wheeling groups of mounted Horse Clan dashed and feinted everywhere, engaging packs of Wolf warriors or disorganized bands of herd-bane with their uncontrollable warbirds.

“Great furies,” Tavi breathed.

“Get your head down,” Bernard rumbled. He picked up a heavy Legion shield and held it across his body, facing the courtyard. “Someone still stops to shoot an arrow once in a while.”

“What about Aunt Isana?”

Bernard grunted, as something struck the metal shield with a hollow, heavy thump. “We’re doing all we can, boy. Stay down!”

Fade let out an alarmed cry from behind his shield, and Tavi looked back in time to see someone make a running leap from the other side of the gap in the wall. Amara landed on the battlements beside Fade with a rush of wind and a grunt of effort and wormed her way behind Fade’s shield at once, panting.

“We’re cut off,” Amara said. She wiped sweat from her brow, and Tavi saw that her hand was shaking. “Horse and Gargant are pushing the other Marat into Garrison. They hold the west courtyard except for the wall. East courtyard has pulled all its people back into buildings for defense. Giraldi thinks that Doroga’s people will drive a wedge between herd-bane and Wolf within the hour and they’ll have to quit the field.”

Bernard blew out a breath. “An hour.” Something else slammed against his shield, shoving his shoulder into Tavi’s. “We aren’t going to last that long. My sister?”

“She’s in one of the barracks in the east courtyard, with Gram. Giraldi said that he saw her go in with him.”

“Good,” Bernard rumbled. “Good.”

Down the wall, one of the
legionares
cried out. Tavi looked up and saw an arrow protruding from the man’s upper shoulder. It didn’t look like a life-threatening wound, but within a few seconds, the man’s head rolled on his neck and he fell quietly to his side.

Bernard grabbed Tavi’s arm and crab walked down the battlements behind his shield, keeping it over both of them. He checked the man’s throat and grimaced. “Must have hit the artery. He’s gone.” Then he frowned and leaned closer. “This isn’t a Marat arrow.”

The next
legionare
on the wall abruptly jerked. His head snapped back, where a few scant inches of his helmet showed over his shield. He blinked, a few times, and then blood ran down between his eyes and over one temple. His eyes unfocused, and then he toppled to his side as well, the arrow piercing his helmet.

Amara dragged Fade down the wall and flicked a glance around his shield. “It’s
him
,” she hissed.

The third man crouched behind his shield, tucking everything in close—too close. The next arrow slammed into the shield itself, pierced it, and went on into the man’s chest, at his ribs. He let out a wheezing cry, blood suddenly a froth on his mouth.

Tavi stared in horror at the
legionares
dying on the wall beside him. It had happened so
fast
. It hadn’t taken half a minute for the unseen archer to kill three men.

“We have to get out of here,” the last of the
legionares
stammered. He started to rise. “We can’t stay here.”

“Stay down, you fool,” Bernard shouted.

But the
legionare
turned to run down the wall, toward the rope that lay coiled by the gap. As soon as he rose, he cried out, and Tavi saw a thick black arrow impaling the man’s leg. He fell to the ground with a shout, landing on top of his shield.

The next arrow struck square against his ear. The man folded quietly down, as though going to sleep, and didn’t move again.

“Damn you, Fidelias!” Amara shouted, her voice raw.

Tavi looked up and down the wall. Behind him, the battlements abruptly ended at the gap Doroga had crushed into the wall. Before him, the battlements ran steadily along until they reached a wall of solid rock. The builders of Garrison had used the old granite bones of the hills on either side of the fortress to serve as its north and south walls, and they were little more than a sharply sloped face of rock. “Can we climb that? Can we get out that way?”

“With all those Knights Aeris?” Amara shook her head. “We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

The courtyard itself, Tavi could hear, seethed with the cries of Marat and their beasts, the occasional scream of a horse, the snarling of wolves, the whistling shrieks of herd-bane. Even if they did climb down the rope, they would only be falling from the frying pan and into the fire.

“We’re trapped,” Tavi breathed.

Another arrow slammed into Bernard’s shield, its steel tip bursting through the metal lining and wood of the shield, sharp point emerging for the width of several fingers and barely falling short of his temple. Bernard went white, but his expression didn’t change, and he covered himself and Tavi with the shield resolutely.

Wind howled at the gap in the wall, and Tavi looked back to see the man who had ordered the Knights Aeris earlier being dropped off on the battlements by one of the airborne Knights. A moment later, the huge swordsman landed next to him.

For an answer, Amara rose, and drew the sword from her side. She took the dagger from her belt and tossed it onto the stones behind her. “Come take it, if you can. I’m surprised you didn’t kill everyone while you had the chance.”

Beside him, he heard his uncle growl. Bernard jerked at the straps of the shield and loosened it from his arm. Then he handed the straps to Tavi and said, “Hold on to this.” Bernard rose, taking up the double-bitted axe, and moved down the wall to stand beside Amara.

Tavi swallowed, staring.

Aldrick paused several feet away, abruptly becoming absolutely still.

Bernard shrugged one of his shoulders and then let out a shout and rolled forward, axe sweeping across his body in a vicious arc at the swordsman’s head. Aldrick ducked beneath the blow, and the axe bit into the stones of one of the merlons, shattering it into flying bits of rock and powder. Bernard spun, using the momentum, and brought the axe sweeping down in a blow meant to split the swordsman’s body in two.

Aldrick waited until the very last second to move and then hardly seemed to move at all. He twisted his hips to one side, drawing the line of his body away from the descending axe, so that it whipped past his chest by the breadth of a hair.

As he did, his sword rose. The tip plunged into Bernard’s flank, just above the belt of his trousers. Bernard stiffened, his eyes widening. He let out a short, harsh groan, and his fingers loosened from the handle of the axe. It fell to the battlements with a thump.

Tavi stared in horror. Aldrick twisted the blade as he tore it back out of Bernard’s flank, then casually let him fall from the battlements, toward the chaos of the courtyard below.