Shapers of Darkness (48 page)

The two men left the chamber and began to make their way through the corridors toward the south towers.

“Have you seen any sign that part of their army is trying to slip past us?” the duke asked as they walked.

“No, my lord. But with the sorcerers’ mist still covering them, we have no idea how many men are approaching. The rest may already be past us; they may have crossed the Tarbin farther east. Or they may be waiting until the siege is under way and our forces committed to the defense of the city and castle.”

Aindreas was barely listening. The more he considered the matter, the more convinced he was that Villyd was right. The siege was secondary; the war in the north would decide Eibithar’s fate. The Aneirans had to be stopped here. Aindreas was quite certain, however, that the Qirsi wanted the soldiers of Mertesse to slip past Kentigern. Jastanne would tell him to guard his castle but to make no attempt at stopping the Aneiran advance.
You have doomed your realm, and for nothing
—
misplaced vengeance and false justice
. He glanced at Villyd, only to find Brienne walking on the far side of the swordmaster, her golden hair shimmering like Panya’s Falls at twilight. She stared back at him, her face so grave that it made Aindreas’s breath catch in his throat. After a moment, she shook her head, and looked away. She hadn’t haunted him since his visit to Bian’s Sanctuary, and he had dared hope that she might leave him alone from now on. He should have known better. He had promised her that he would end this alliance with the Qirsi, and he knew that she would hold him to his word.

“What can I do?” he whispered. “There’s no way out of this.”

“My lord?”

The duke covered his eyes briefly, then looked again. The apparition had vanished.

“Are you all right, my lord?”

Relief and sorrow warred within him. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“We were speaking of the Aneirans, my lord. Of the purpose—”

“I know what we were discussing. What would you have me do, swordmaster?”

They entered one of the tower stairways, making their way down to the ward so that they might cross to the castle’s outer defenses.

“Send some of your men north, my lord. Send them to Galdasten now, before the siege begins and they can’t leave.”

Listen to him!
Brienne’s voice shouted in his mind.
It’s not too late to make right again all that you ‘ve destroyed!
But while he heard his daughter’s voice, it was Jastanne’s face that loomed before him, waiflike, yet forbidding. Whatever his uncertainties about the expectations of the conspiracy, he knew how they would respond to any sign that he was breaking his oath to them. Jastanne would expose him as a traitor to the realm, offering as proof the document he had penned for her only a few turns before. There had to be a way out of this, a way to free himself of the conspiracy without disgracing himself and his house. He had no choice but to believe that. But he had yet to find it, and until he did, he could not risk angering the Qirsi.

They entered the south watch tower of the outer wall and started up the stairway to the ramparts. “We haven’t enough men to spare, Villyd. It doesn’t matter if the Aneirans actually hope to take the tor, or only wish to distract us from their true purpose. Either way, this siege threatens the survival of our house. I’ll not weaken our army by chasing phantoms to Galdasten.”

“Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but we don’t need two thousand men to repel a siege. We can guard the castle and city with half that number.”

“The last time I left Kentigern to be guarded by so few, the castle fell.”

“That was because of Shurik’s treachery, my lord.”

“Do you honestly believe that if I had been here, and the men with me, Mertesse would have gained control of the tor, even with the gates weakened?”

The swordmaster could offer but one answer. He looked straight ahead. “No, my lord. Of course not.”

They emerged from the stairway into the bright sunshine.

Aindreas held a hand to his brow, shielding his eyes, and looking down on the thick mist that appeared to be crawling up the side of the tor. It wouldn’t be long before the Aneirans were at the Tarbin gate.
Let it hold
.

“You don’t like being at odds with the Crown, do you, Villyd?”

“No, my lord.”

“You think I should have reconciled with Kearney a long time ago. I know that.”

“I’m but a warrior, my lord. I know little of court politics.”

Aindreas had to grin. “Your reply belies the claim, swordmaster.” He waved a hand, as if to dismiss the matter. “It’s not important. To be honest, I don’t relish being labeled a traitor any more than you do, and I share your concern for the realm. I don’t like Kearney and probably I never will, but I have no desire to see Braedon and the Aneirans carving up the kingdom. My first duty, though, is to Kentigern and her people. Until I’m convinced that the tor is safe, I won’t send away even a single man. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Tearing his gaze from the mist, Aindreas surveyed the castle walls. Already the swordmaster had positioned archers three deep on the top of the wall. They would be ready to loose their arrows as soon as the enemy was within reach.

“You have men preparing fire pots and lime?”

“Yes, my lord. We’ll have tar as well. The Aneirans won’t have an easy time of it, that’s for certain.”

Aindreas nodded, surprised by how calm he suddenly felt. “Good.” Maybe the gates would hold; maybe they wouldn’t. Perhaps the Aneirans were intent on capturing the tor; perhaps,
as Villyd suggested, this was all just an elaborate diversion. At least something was finally happening. Yes, the Qirsi still controlled him, and he remained convinced that this siege and the fighting to the north were contrivances of the conspiracy, but once the battles began he’d at least have a chance. The white-hairs couldn’t control everything, not amid the turmoil and carnage of war.

A wind began to rise from the south, though the conjured mist clung stubbornly to the side of the tor and the winding road that led from the Tarbin to the castle gate.

“That’s a Qirsi wind,” Villyd said, eyeing the sky warily. A few pale clouds hung over the city, but they were barely moving. “The Aneirans must think that they’re within range of our bowmen.”

“Are they?”

The swordmaster looked down on the mist. “Possibly. But we still can’t see them.”

“How are our stores of long shafts and bolts?”

“We have ample supplies of both, my lord.”

“Then let them fly. I want the Aneirans to understand that their Qirsi can’t protect them from the soldiers of Kentigern.”

At that, the swordmaster faced the duke again, grinning eagerly. “Yes, my lord.”

He shouted an order to the archers. Immediately those men with crossbows stepped to the wall and aimed their weapons down at the slope of the tor. Villyd raised his arm, then brought it down sharply. The crossbows snapped loudly in rapid succession, and the bolts whistled as they flew, like trilling birds. A moment later screams of anguish rose from the mist. The first bowmen stepped back, to be replaced at once by archers with longbows. Again the swordmaster’s arm rose and fell. Bows thrummed, the long shafts flew, and more cries echoed off the tor and the castle walls.

Aindreas could hear the Aneiran commanders shouting instructions as well, and after a few moments the wind strengthened and shifted so that it blew across the tor. Clearly the attackers wished to make it more difficult for Kentigern’s archers to find their mark.

“Continue to loose your arrows, swordmaster,” the duke
said. “And call for the tar and fire pots. They’re rushing the gate.”

The mist had reached the castle entrance and now Aindreas could hear the wheels of the Aneirans’ siege engines. There was a pit in the center of the road that had been intended to further impede the approach of snails, rams, and other siege machines. During the last siege, however, the army of Mertesse had filled it in with stones and dirt. In the year since, Aindreas had instructed his men to clear it out once more, but he had been more concerned with the reconstruction of the gate itself, and the pit had been largely neglected. It might slow the Aneirans, but only briefly.

Villyd barked orders, sending men scurrying in every direction. The third line of archers loosed their arrows, and stepped back, making room for the crossbowmen, who had fitted new bolts in their weapons. Soldiers emerged from tower stairways carrying pots of oil and containers of lime, and a short time later, others appeared, with forked poles to fend off the ladders that the Aneirans would use to scale the castle walls. Aindreas was about to call a second time for the tar, when the smell reached him, burning his nostrils. An instant later men appeared in the tower doorways struggling with large vats of the foul stuff.

Villyd shouted again, and the bowmen shifted positions, moving to either side of the Tarbin wall so as to make room for the men with the tar and fire pots.

“All is ready, my lord,” the swordmaster said. “We need only wait for the first blow.”

“Very well, Villyd. Have the archers continue to fire.”

“Yes, my lord.”

After but a few seconds the crossbows crackled again, and more howls rent the air. Then one round of longbows. And the other. An otherworldly stillness settled over the tor, broken only by the pulsing of bows, the whistle of arrows, and the shrieks of those dying below the castle ramparts.

Aindreas peered down at the mist again, waiting for the assault on the gate to commence, listening for any indication of what the Aneirans were doing. As he did, he suddenly felt the
hairs on his neck stand on end, as if some wraith from Bian’s realm had run a ghostly finger down his spine. Unsure as to why he did it, the duke straightened and turned, looking north, toward the shores of the Strait of Wantrae.

Atop a small rise, not far from the city walls, a slight figure sat atop a white mount, seeming to stare back at him. For just a single heartbeat, Aindreas thought it was Brienne, or at least the apparition of his beloved child, haunting him once more. But as he continued to watch the rider, sunlight burst forth from behind a cloud, lighting the figure’s hair and face. Both were as white as bleached bone. Jastanne.

“Is something wrong, my lord?”

Aindreas turned so quickly that he nearly lost his balance. “No. I was just—” He shook his head. “It was nothing.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Was there something you wanted, Villyd?”

“Yes, my lord. I was wondering if you wanted to send men out to strike at the Aneirans?”

The duke narrowed his eyes, thinking that the swordmaster was trying once more to get him to send part of his army northward. “I thought we had discussed this.”

“No, my lord. I mean to strike at them here. We can send a small party of archers out of the east sally port to attack the siege machines as they reach the gate. But we’d need to do it now, while they still have their mists about them. This won’t work if the men can be seen.”

Aindreas nodded. “Give the order, swordmaster.”

“Yes, my lord,” Villyd said and hurried away.

The duke turned to look toward the rise again, but Jastanne was gone.

A cry went up from Aindreas’s men, and before the duke even had time to turn toward the sound, the castle shuddered, as from a blow. The assault on the gate had begun.

Aindreas strode to Villyd’s side and looked down at the side of the tor. The mist was gone, and he could see the ram poised just in front of the gate. Its wooden roof was covered with animal skins, as were the roofs of the snails that still crawled up the road, protecting much of the Aneiran army. The duke
heard the Aneirans within the ram shouting in cadence and the castle shook a second time. Yet for all the power of the blow, it seemed that the new gate was holding.

“Fire pots!” Villyd called. “Lime and tar as well! Archers, flaming arrows!”

In another moment, all on the castle walls was frenzy. Ladders rose to the ramparts as if sprouting from the earth, and Aneiran soldiers began to climb them under the cover of volleys from their own archers. Kentigern’s men used the forked poles to push the ladders away, sending enemy soldiers tumbling to the ground. Others used torches to light the oil pots, which they then dropped on the ram and snail. Still others poured tar over the edge of the ramparts, drawing wails of pain from below. When a few of the enemy managed to gain the top of the wall, they were immediately beset by swordsmen. Several of the Aneiran bowmen found their mark, killing a number of Aindreas’s men, including one soldier only a few fourspans from where the duke stood. Still, most of the casualties in these first moments of the siege were inflicted on the attackers.

“You planned well, swordmaster,” the duke said, toppling a ladder himself and ducking beneath a flurry of arrows. The fortress shuddered once more.

“Thank you, my lord.” Villyd’s tone was a match for his grim expression.

“You’re not pleased?”

The man nodded toward the river by way of answer.

Following the direction of the swordmaster’s gaze Aindreas saw them as well, though the Aneirans had tried to hide their work within the trees and rushes growing along the Tarbin. Hurling arms. Four of them. They hadn’t been completed yet, but from the look of them, it wouldn’t be long.

“How can they have built them so quickly?”

“I’d guess that they cut and prepared the timber in Mertesse before crossing the Tarbin, my lord. At least, that’s what they did last time.”

“Of course.”

Another blow to the gate.

“Last time they had only one.”

“They only needed one. Shurik had seen to the gates.”

“Yes, my lord. I expected two this time, perhaps three. But not four.”

“The walls will hold, Villyd. They always have.”

“Of course, my lord. But still I fear for the men. No part of the wall will be safe.”

“We may have to send out parties through the sally ports after all. Not yet, not until we have an idea of where they intend to place the arms. But you should begin forming several parties of your best archers and swordsmen. Have them ready to go when I give the word.”