Tower Lord

CHAPTER FOUR

Reva

“It means ‘witch,’” Veliss said, peering at the open book in her hand. “Female derivation of the old Volarian for ‘sorcerer.’”

“Elverah,” Reva said, tasting the word. “Has a nice sound to it.”

“They think you’re a witch?” Arken said.

“Godless heretics,” Lord Arentes sniffed. “Mistaking the Father’s blessing for the Dark.”

Reva stifled a groan. Not him too.

“It’s good,” Uncle Sentes said from his place by the fire, his voice a wheezing rasp. “Means they’re afraid.”

“Well they might,” Arentes said, smiling at Reva. “My lady brings the Father’s justice down upon them every time they assault our walls.”

“The Realm Guard we freed?” Reva asked him, keen to change the subject.

“Joined them with the hundred or so others already on the walls, my lady,” the guard commander replied. “Got them reinforcing the southern section. We’re still thin there.”

“Good.” She turned to Veliss. “Supplies?”

“About two-thirds remaining,” she replied. “But that’s only because we’re rationing so severely. There have been complaints, women mainly. Not an easy thing to see your children cry from hunger.”

“Double the ration for women with children,” Reva said. “I don’t like to hear them cry either.”

“Hunger is the enemy’s best weapon, my lady,” Lord Antesh pointed out. “Every mouthful we eat brings them a step closer to cresting the walls.”

“Winter is no more than a month away,” her uncle said from the fire. “And they have scant pickings for forage. We’ll see who starves first.” He fell to coughing and gave an irritated wave. “Enough of this,” he choked when the fit subsided. “Leave me with my niece.”

The others bowed and moved to the door, Veliss’s hand brushing Reva’s as she followed. She went to sit opposite her uncle, noting the shake in his hands as they rested on the blanket. “You know it’ll only get worse,” he said. “Crying children will be the least of it.”

“I know, Uncle.”

“This”-he waved his hand vaguely-“wasn’t my plan. I’d hoped your tenure would be free of war.”

“Not your doing.”

“I had a dream last night. It was very strange. Your father was there, and mine, and your grandmother. All here in the library. Very strange since my parents could hardly stand to be in the same room . . .” He trailed off, blinking as his gaze drifted.

“Uncle?”

His eyes fluttered closed and she went to pull the blanket over his arms. His head jerked up as she came close, eyes bright with joy. “They said they were proud of me,” he breathed. “Because of you, Reva. Seems I finally did something right.”

She sat at his side, head resting on his knees as his frail hands played through her hair. “Too long,” she heard him murmur. “Cumbraelin women don’t wear it so long.”

They came again the following night, attacking in several places at once as Antesh predicted. The battalions came trooping over the causeway in close order, shielded on all sides, Varitai in front marching with their unnatural rhythm, Free Swords behind, ranks not so tightly formed but careful to keep behind their shields. Antesh ordered all bows lowered as they reached the end of the causeway, opting not to waste arrows. The Volarian column split into two, the battalions inching along with slow deliberation to encircle the city, not a gap appearing in their protective walls.

“Buggers learn too quickly for my liking,” Lord Arentes commented. He gave Reva a smart salute. “I shall take command of the western section, my lady. With your permission.”

“Of course, my lord. Be safe.”

The old commander gave a stiff bow and strode off. Reva watched the slow approach of the battalions for a moment then notched an arrow to her bow and vaulted onto the gatehouse roof.

“My lady!” Antesh reached out to her but she curtly waved him away.

“I want to see how much they fear me,” she said.

The battalions kept marching, moving into position in accordance with a well-rehearsed scheme, seemingly oblivious to the hated witch staring down at them with bow in hand. It was the Free Swords who took the bait, as she expected. A small chink appearing in the shield roof of a battalion as it trooped off the causeway and wheeled to the left. Reva waited for the glint of metal to appear in the black triangle then stepped to the side, the arrow leaving a harsh whisper in her ear as it flew past. She drew and released in an instant, her shaft finding the chink. The Free Sword battalion convulsed like a wounded beast, the discord rippling through the ranks as sergeants shouted for order, but not before more gaps had appeared in the shield wall.

“Archers up!” Antesh barked and a hundred bowmen rushed to the wall, arrows descending in a furious iron-tipped rain. The battalion struggled on as the arrows continued to fly, trailing bodies and attempting to re-form ranks but the damage was done. A few more seconds and it convulsed again, flying apart as panic took the remaining men. Some ran for the causeway, others to neighbouring battalions seeking shelter. Most were cut down within seconds but perhaps a few of the more fleet-footed made it to safety.

Reva notched another arrow and continued to stand atop the battlement, eyes scanning the Volarian ranks below for another opportunity. She wondered if hatred was in fact a physical force because she could feel it now, rising towards her like a wave.

The last Volarian battalion trooped into place directly opposite the gatehouse. Smaller than the others, perhaps three hundred men, the ranks moving with greater precision than even the Varitai. Kuritai, Reva decided.

She raised her bow above her head, laughing and thinking about her dying uncle. It seems I finally did something right. “Well come on!” she called to the silent ranks below. “I’m waiting.”

Antesh sent out parties in the morning to retrieve arrows and gather weapons from the dead. Reva chose to go with them, not wanting to be thought of as shirking the more odious duties.

“Lord Arentes puts the count at well over a thousand Volarians killed,” Arken commented. He paused to tug an arrow from the corpse of a Varitai lying half-submerged on the bank, also taking his short sword and dagger.

“They kept us busy enough,” Reva agreed. The night had been a blur of successive crises, seeing her rush from one section of the wall to the other as the Volarians sought to gain a claw hold. They had come close only twice, once on the western section where Varitai had used grapples to scale the wall whilst the main force of Free Swords tried vainly to climb their ladders. Lord Arentes had already contained the assault by the time she got there, the old commander bleeding from a cut on his forehead as he shouted orders to the City Guard. A single charge with lowered halberds had been enough to dislodge the Volarians, heralding another arrow-lashed flight to the causeway.

The incursion on the southern section proved the most serious. Reva had dealt with the Kuritai assault on the gatehouse by the simple expedient of having them soaked in lamp oil when they abandoned their shields to sprint for the wall, grappling hooks whirling. Successive volleys of fire arrows saw most plummeting to the ground in flames but a few made it to the top of the wall, some still alight as they did their deadly two-sworded dance, killing many defenders before being cut down. She was ordering the bodies tipped over the battlements when a messenger came running with news more Kuritai were atop the southern wall.

She sent word ordering the House Guards to reinforce the sector and ran there with Arken in tow. The Kuritai had been hidden amongst the main force of Free Swords, an annoyingly clever tactic she would have to watch for in future. They had formed a tight defensive knot on the southern wall, bodies piled up on either side as the Realm Guard defenders rallied for another counterattack. Their commander was a young sergeant already showing numerous cuts on his bare arms and face.

“One more try, lads!” he called to his men. “We’ll get the bastards this time.”

“Hold,” Reva ordered, eyeing the close ranks of Kuritai, crouched with typically blank expressions as Free Swords struggled over the battlements behind.

“Stand ready,” she told the Realm Guard, stepping forward and unslinging the wych elm. She stood aiming with careful deliberation, barely twelve feet from the nearest enemy, killing one, then another, the Kuritai ranks closing the gaps with an unconscious lack of hesitancy. She killed two more before one of the Kuritai barked a command and they came for her. She tossed the wych elm aside and reached over her shoulder to draw her sword as the Realm Guard charged.

She had difficulty recalling the exact train of events after that. She remembered leaping and whirling, a Kuritai falling with a half-severed neck, but mostly it was all a red-tinged confusion of clashing blades and rending flesh. It ended with the arrival of the House Guards, charging in with halberds to finish the remaining Kuritai and push the Free Swords from the wall.

She found herself hailed once more, the Realm Guard pummelling her with slaps to the back. She was too tired to push them away and Arken had to pull her free from the press. She was gratified to see him unharmed, though his face had the pale aspect of one who has killed at close quarters for the first time.

She paused at the sight of the young Realm-Guard sergeant dragging a wounded Free Sword to his feet, the man clutching his forearm, the bone gleaming white from the gaping wound. “Where’s your whip now, you fucking filth?” He drew a dagger and jammed it into the wound, twisting the blade as the man screamed. “Where’s your whip now, eh?”

“Just kill him and have done!” Reva ordered. “Re-form your ranks. This night’s not over.”

They kept at it for nearly four hours until the first glimmer of dawn broke over the broad river, ever more battalions trooping over the causeway to try their luck, more and more bodies littering the ground as every assault failed. It was costly, Arentes reporting losses of over three hundred killed and another two hundred wounded, but they held. Finally the surviving Volarians pulled back, the Varitai re-forming ranks and reclaiming their shields, the Free Swords forgetting discipline and running as the arrow storm descended once more, burgeoning daylight increasing the toll exacted by the longbows.

Excited shouts brought her back to the present and she saw a live Volarian being dragged from the river. A Free Sword, judging by his evident fear, turning to abject terror when he saw her approach.

“Yes,” she said. “The elverah’s here.”

The man just stared at her in frozen horror, only the faintest glimmer of reason in his eyes. This one will never fight again.

“My lady?” one of the archers asked, his dagger already drawn.

“Does anyone here speak his language?”

Only Veliss had enough knowledge of Volarian to communicate with the man, and even then just in written form. She referred to her books to translate Reva’s message and had him recite it back. Sending a note may have been easier but she wanted his comrades to hear the fear in his voice as he related her words.

“The elverah has much power and will kill all who come against this city. But she is merciful. Your commanders waste your lives in fruitless attacks whilst they sit safe in their tents. Any who throw down their arms and depart this place will be spared the elverah’s vengeance. Only death awaits those who stay.”

“Is he saying it right?” she asked Veliss as the man stumbled through the words held in front of his eyes.

“As far as I can tell.”

Reva turned to Antesh. “Have him read it out ten times then let him go. I’ll be with my uncle.”

They didn’t come the next night, or the night after that. The Volarian camp went about its martial business with no sign of preparing another assault. If any more towers or rafts were being constructed, it was done out of their sight. Otherwise they drilled, sent out cavalry patrols and made no further effort to cross the causeway.

“Seems they intend to starve us out after all,” Antesh commented.

“Bloody cowards,” Lord Arentes said. “A few more assaults like the other night and we’d have won this siege.”

“Hence the starving us out.” The Lord of Archers stepped to Reva’s side. “We could sally forth, my lady. Launch a raid or two. Might provoke another unwise attack.”

“As you wish,” she said. “But keep it small, and volunteers only. Preferably men without families.”

“I’ll see to it, my lady.”

The succeeding days saw her settle into an irksome routine of daily inspections, training the defenders to ensure they didn’t slacken and going over Veliss’s reports of ever-more-diminishing supplies.

“We’re down to half already?” she asked one evening. “How is that possible?”

“People seem to eat more when they’re afraid,” Veliss replied. “Plus we went through the fresh meat and livestock in the first few weeks. Now it’s just bread and a little salted meat. I’m sorry, love, but the ration must be cut again. And not just the people, the soldiers too. That’s if we’re going to last the winter.”

Reva stared down at the neatly inscribed figures on Veliss’s parchment. “Did you learn this somewhere?” she asked. “The pen work?”

“My old dadda was the village scribe. Taught me the trade, but the, ah, distractions of womanhood led me to Varinshold before I could be properly apprenticed.”

“Did he beat you? Is that why you left?”

Veliss laughed. “Faith no. Doubt he ever lifted a hand to anyone, even my mother though the cheating cow certainly deserved it. He was just a kindly, dull little man with no desire to see what lay beyond his village. I wanted more.”

Over by the fire her uncle stirred again, mumbling something in his sleep. “He dreams a lot these days,” Veliss said. “Rambles on about his family for hours when he’s awake.” Despite the caustic tone Reva could see the concern in her face, the onset of grief for a man not yet dead. She fought the impulse to reach for her hand and rose from the desk.

“Set aside enough wine for his needs,” she said. “And empty the cellar, the bottles will be given to the people. Might sweeten the pill of cutting the rations.”

“Or fill the streets with riotous drunks.”

“Dole it out a little at a time. Any more visits from the Reader’s dog?”

“No, the old man seems content to rave away in his cathedral. The services are well-attended though and my sources tell me his rhetoric is becoming more bizarre and doom-laden by the day. The Father’s judgement descends upon us, and so forth. Could be a problem as things get worse.” Reva detected a certain weight of meaning in Veliss’s words.

She glanced at Uncle Sentes. “Did he have any design to constrain the old man’s power?”

“He preferred the slow game. Gather intelligence, evidence of hypocrisy or corruption, and wait for a time to use it, either as leverage or to have the Reader replaced with a more tractable cleric. With you we finally had something that might give us an advantage.”

“But only if we could find the priest.”

“Quite so.”

Reva went to the window, gazing up at the twin spires. He’s not here, she thought. Not in the city. I’d smell it if he was. “Tell your watchful friends to keep watching,” she said. “For now.”

She was woken in the early hours of the morning by Arken’s insistent shaking. She had taken to sleeping on the couch in the library between shifts on the wall, not wishing to stray too far from her uncle’s side. It seemed Veliss had decided to share it with her sometime in the night. The woman lay against her side, arm draped over her waist and head resting on her shoulder, thick dark brown curls partly covering Reva’s face. They smelt like strawberry.

Reva disentangled herself quickly, reaching for her weapons and avoiding Arken’s gaze. If he found anything untoward in the scene however, it was absent from his voice. “Something’s happening on the river.”

“What are they?” she asked, gazing out at the strange contraptions perched on the deck of the ships anchored in the river. They were hard to make out in the morning haze hanging over the Coldiron, large blocky shapes with round shoulders and stubby arms, crouching like malformed giants in the mist.

Lord Antesh stared at the ships in grim silence and it was Arentes who spoke up. “Engines, my lady. But not like any I have ever seen.”

The faint echo of shouted orders drifted across the river as a long line of boats materialised out of the haze covering the far bank, each laden with something large and round.

“There’s a quarry barely ten miles south,” Antesh commented in a reflective tone. “Not a thing you can burn, a quarry.” He hefted his thick-staved bow, notched an arrow and raised it at a high angle, drawing the string a good six inches past his ear before releasing. The arrow arced high over the river and fell into the swift-flowing current ten yards short of the nearest ship.

“What engine can sling a stone farther than an arrow?” Arentes wondered.

“It seems these can,” Antesh replied. His gaze tracked from the engines to the wall. “The stones will likely fall somewhere between the gatehouse and the western bastion. If they’re smart, they’ll try for multiple breaches.”

“Clear the battlements there,” Reva said and Arentes immediately strode off shouting orders, the defenders on the wall breaking off from gaping at the engines to run for the stairways.

“We should prepare defences back from the wall,” Antesh said. “It’ll mean pulling down some houses to create a killing ground.”

“Then get to it,” Reva said. “Have Lady Veliss issue receipts for any loss of property. Oh, and give any dispossessed householders the best wine from the Fief Lord’s cellar.”

He bowed and marched off. Reva watched the boats as they made their way to the three anchored ships, hearing the crack of several whips as slaves laboured to haul the stones onto the decks. A faint clinking sound could be heard as the arms of the engines were drawn back, dim figures moving on the deck as the stones were hauled into place. Then silence, the engines primed but unmoving. What are they waiting for?

One of the archers straightened and pointed to something upriver. Reva moved to his side and peered into the mist, seeing only a faint shadow at first, a tall square sail ascending out of the haze. Soon however the full size of the ship was revealed, the largest she could recall seeing, the great dark hull displacing a wake that washed onto the shore like a wave at high tide. The ship’s sides rose from the water at least twenty feet high, numerous figures moving about on deck in the centre of which stood a white awning. Reva strained her eyes and fancied she saw the outline of a tall figure standing beneath the canvas. Come to watch the show, have you? She gripped her bow and wondered if Arren’s wondrous work would give an arrow enough flight to reach him from here, but knew it would be an empty gesture of defiance and the mood of the defenders was already plummeting before her eyes.

There came a rattling of chains then a splash as the huge ship weighed anchor, positioned some twenty yards to the rear of the three ships with their slumbering giants. A single flaming arrow arced up from the deck of the great ship, trailing smoke as it fell into the water, and the giants spoke, the stubby arms springing forward with a great thrum, the stones they cast at first too fast to follow as they ascended high enough to make them appear like pebbles thrown by an angry child. They seemed to hang there against the sky for an age, as if frozen by the World Father in answer to the thousand prayers now ascending from the walls. But if so, His hand reached down for no more than an instant.

The first stone fell short, impacting on the bank with sufficient force to shake the wall beneath her feet and raising a waterspout high enough to bring rain to the battlements. The second flew over the wall, gouging some stonework from the inner battlement before crashing into the houses beyond, raising screams and the sound of hundreds of bricks falling onto cobbled streets.

The engineers servicing the third giant, however, clearly knew their business all too well. The massive stone sphere struck just below the rim of the west-facing wall, the force of it sending her reeling as rubble exploded from the impact. The stone rolled down the outer wall to thump into the bank below. Reva stared at the point of impact, expecting the cracks she could see in the stone to immediately widen and the whole section collapse. Instead the dust settled and the wall held.

She got to her feet, watching the giants pulling their arms back in readiness for the next throw, engineers busy around the contraptions as they adjusted their aim. Well, she thought. They have to go.

This time she stood firm against Antesh’s threats of resignation, and also Veliss’s damp-eyed imprecations. “It has to be me,” she said simply, leaving the reason unsaid. No-one else can do it. He didn’t send anyone else against the Alpiran engines during the desert war-neither will I.

The boats were readied in the narrow channel through the north wall that provided access to river traffic. Fifty picked men in ten boats, piled high with oil pots and fire arrows. Like her, all were dressed in black with soot smeared over every inch of exposed skin and all blades tarnished to conceal their gleam. She found Arken at the prow of her own boat, sitting silently with his axe clamped in a two-handed grip. From the set of his shoulders it was clear removing him from the boat would require some considerable force.

“Hope you’ve kept it sharp,” Reva said, sitting down next to him and nodding at his axe.

“Doesn’t seem to matter,” he said. “Hit them hard enough and they fall over regardless.”

She pressed a kiss to his cheek, finding she couldn’t help but enjoy the flush that crept over his skin despite a pang of guilt. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. “Stay close to me.”

The boats were launched a short while after midnight. The sky was cloudy, sparing them any betraying moonlight as they struggled against the current, working the oars in heavily greased cleats to conceal the sound. They ploughed downriver for a hundred yards before angling towards the west and shipping the oars, letting the current do the work as they hunkered low in the boats. The engines continued their bombardment even at night, well lit with torches to allow the engineers to service their monsters. The low crump of stone striking stone a slow drumbeat as the helmsmen brought them ever closer.

Reva stood as the nearest ship came within range, arrow notched as she sought a target, finding a stocky man on the port side, pounding a mallet into some fixture on the engine. It was a poor attempt, the bob of the current and the forward movement of the boat throwing off her aim, but she did manage to sink the arrow into the engineer’s thigh. He gave a shout, falling to the deck as his comrades straightened from their work, frozen in surprise and easily made out in the torchlight.

“Up!” Reva shouted, notching and loosing once again. The other archers rose and loosed as one, the volley sweeping the engineers from the deck in an instant. The helmsman steered the boat to the ship’s side, three more crowding alongside as Reva gripped a rope and hauled herself aboard. The deck was covered in corpses and wounded, some severely, others not.

“Finish them all!” she barked, pointing the men with oil towards the engine. “Burn it!”

They got to work as she went to the starboard rail to watch the other boats assail the remaining engines. The archers were standing with bows drawn when the blasts of multiple horns arose from the surrounding water. The great shadow of the Volarian warship suddenly blazed with light, torches sparking to life from bow to stern, revealing a dense mass of archers crowding the deck and the rigging.

“Down!” she shouted, reaching for Arken. He gaped at the swarm of arrows now rising from the warship’s deck then dived to mask her with his greater bulk. The Volarian shafts sounded like a hailstorm as they covered the ship, Arken giving a shout of pain and collapsing onto her, bearing her down to the deck. She stared out from beneath his elbow to see four of her men pinned to the boards, pierced from head to toe. Arken grunted and tried to rise.

“The river!” Reva hissed.

Arken gripped her tight and rolled them both towards the port rail. He tumbled over as another volley descended, plunging straight into the river but she held on, wincing as the arrows smacked into the woodwork around her, one less than an inch from her left hand as it held to the rail. She paused to survey the deck, seeing no survivors amongst the men who had followed her to this ship, or the engineers they had come to kill. The engine, however, stood undamaged, gleaming from the oil with which it had been liberally spattered before the arrows fell.

Reva glanced down at the bow in her right hand, her thumb briefly tracing over the fine carvings. Sorry, Master Arren. She dropped it into the Coldiron and vaulted back onto the deck, snatched a torch from a stanchion and tossed it onto the engine, the lamp oil flaring immediately. She turned and dived over the rail, ears filled with the buzz of multiple arrows before the river’s chill claimed her. She kept under as long as she dared, feeling the warmth of her body seeping away as she struggled towards the city, surfacing to gulp air then diving under again. It seemed an age before she felt the reeds close around her, gripping the stems to haul herself from the water. She lay gasping on the bank for a long time, raising her head to watch the ship and the engine burning, its two brothers, however, stood undamaged. She could see bodies floating in the water, borne upstream by the current.

“Arken!” She forced herself to her feet, stumbling along the bank. “Arken!”

As if in mockery the two surviving engines both launched at once, their stones sailing out of the black void to crash into the wall above her head, forcing her to dodge the falling masonry. It fell onto the pile of rubble below the increasingly deep rent in the wall. It was not a huge barrier, but now it seemed like a mountain.

“She’s here!” came a shout from above. “Blessed Lady Reva lives!”

She looked up to see numerous pale faces staring down at her from the battlements, a growing chorus of adulation rising from the walls as word of her survival spread.

They think it a victory, she realised, casting her gaze at the river once more. The lights on the warship were blinking out one by one, the flaming engine still burning, but not so brightly, a phrase from the Book of Wisdom looming large in her mind: War makes fools of us all.

Arken had been found close to the causeway, an arrow jutting from his back and senseless from cold and blood loss. She rushed to the healing house on being hauled onto the battlement by means of a long rope. The defenders had crowded round, voicing awed appreciation, sinking to their knees, some praying openly to the Father, most just staring. Suddenly she hated them, finding their desperate belief a disgusting betrayal of the sacrifice she had just witnessed. The Father did nothing! she wanted to rail at them. I am preserved by dumb luck. I hold no blessing. Look at the corpses floating in the river, I did that.

None of it could be voiced of course. They needed her to be blessed, needed to know the Father’s sight rested on this city.

Brother Harin was washing the blood from his hands when she got to the healing house. Arken lay face down on a table, his bare flesh bone-white save for the red rivulets streaming from the partly bandaged wound on his back. His eyes were closed, but she could see a soft flutter beneath his eyelids.

“Will he live?” she asked the healer.

“I expect so,” Harin replied. “Being young and strong as an ox.”

Reva collapsed in relief, slumping against the wall and sinking to the floor. No more tears, she reminded herself as she felt them welling.

Harin came to her with a blanket, gently pulling her upright and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Not good, my lady,” he commented, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Not good at all.”

He sat her by the fire, blanket about her shoulders, clutching a cup of something dark and steaming as he stitched Arken’s wound. “The city’s all abuzz with it,” he said, eyes fixed on his work. “Bringing the Father’s fiery justice to the heretics’ dread engines.”

“I doubt such sentiments are shared by you, brother,” she replied and sipped her drink, face wrinkling with instant distaste. “What is this?”

“Brother’s Friend. Always good for banishing a chill if warmed over the fire for a few minutes.”

She recalled how Alornis’s drunken poet had lapped up this concoction like buttermilk and could only shake her head in wonder as she forced down another mouthful. “Is it supposed to make you dizzy?” she asked after a moment.

“Oh yes.”

“That’s all right then.” She sat, feeling the warmth spread as she sipped, her tongue numbed against the liquor’s bitterness. Brother Harin’s hands moved with a curious deftness for such a large man as he worked the catgut through the lips of Arken’s wound with two tweezers. “You are very skilled, brother.”

“Why thank you, my lady.”

“He told me about you lot, y’know.” She paused to drink some more. “Fifth Order. Besht healers in the world, he said.”

“He?”

“Al Sorna. Darkblade. Who elsh?” She raised the cup to her lips, wondering how it had contrived to empty itself so quickly. “Thought I could do it, y’see? Do what he did. Just got everyone killed instead. Not me though. I’ve got the Father’s blessing.”

“I don’t know about the Father’s blessing, my lady,” the big healer said in a soft tone. “But I do know this city continues to stand because of you. Never forget that.”

There was commotion at the door and Veliss burst into the room, sighing in explosive relief at the sight of Reva. She came to her, hands soft on her cheeks, eyes wide with delight.

Reva hiccuped and gave a small burp.

“She’s drunk,” Veliss accused Harin.

“And considerably warmer,” the brother replied.

Veliss’s eyes went to Arken’s unmoving form. “Just the two of them?”

“Sadly, yes. Lord Antesh had the banks searched, without luck.”

“Fifty men,” Reva slurred, wondering why the room was suddenly so much darker. “Never killed so many at once before.”

“Did what you had to, love.” Veliss put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her to her feet. “Let’s go home. Your uncle’s been asking for you.”

“Fifty men,” Reva whispered as all sensation began to fade and her eyelids fell shut like lead weights. “Blessed by the Father . . .”

Her head hurt worse than she thought possible, making her wonder if the Father had placed an invisible axe in her skull as punishment for her sinful doubts. The ceaseless thump of the engines’ stones did nothing to help. She went to view the breach first thing in the morning, flanked by four House Guards to keep the more ardent townsfolk at bay. Many voices were raised as she moved through the streets, calls of thanks and simple wonder, some kneeling as she passed, much as they knelt for the Reader in the square. It was too much.

“Stop that!” she said, halting by an elderly couple who knelt outside a wool shop. They both continued to stare up at her with baffled awe.

“The Father sent you to us, my lady,” the old woman said. “You bring His sight upon us.”

“I bring a sword and a bow, one of which I lost last night.” She bent down, taking the woman’s elbow and lifting her up. “Do not kneel to me. For that matter, don’t kneel to anyone.” She was aware of other people crowding round, the many eyes boring into her face as they stood in rapt attention. “This city will not be held by kneelers. Kneel now and the walls will fall, and the people who brought them down will ensure you’ll be kneeling for the rest of your lives.”

The crowd remained silent around her, reverence on every face . . . save one.

A young woman stood cradling an infant towards the rear of the crowd, her face sullen with despair, cheekbones sunken from lack of food. The baby in her arms pawed at her face with tiny hands. Reva moved through the throng, the people parting with bowed heads.

“May I see?” Reva asked, placing a hand on the baby’s swaddling. The young woman gave a slight nod and pulled the blanket aside revealing a pink and happy face, cheeks plump and dimpled as the child smiled up at Reva. “He’s well-fed,” she said. “You’re not.”

“No sense both of us going hungry,” the young woman replied in an Asraelin accent, which explained the lack of reverence.

“His father?”

“Went to the wall, didn’t come back. They told me he was brave, which is something, I suppose.”

Reva winced at the thunder-crack impact of another stone on the wall. The deepening breach was visible from here, a jagged upturned triangle above the rooftops. When it’s done this won’t be a siege any more, she realised. It’ll be a battle.

“The rations will be doubled tomorrow,” she told the young woman. “My word on it. In the meantime, go to the manor and ask for Lady Veliss. Tell her I sent you to help in the kitchens.”

Lord Antesh was overseeing the construction of a stout defensive wall twenty yards back from the breach. The surrounding houses were gone, their stone used for the new wall. Masons were hard at work with mortar and trowels to build a barrier some ten feet high, curving around the breach site in a semicircle complete with a parapet.

“My lady,” Antesh greeted her with a bow. “Two more days and we’ll be done here. Of course we’ll need more when they start on their second breach, as they’re bound to do.”

“Was half hoping they’d risk it all on this one,” Reva replied, knowing that the previous night had provided ample evidence their opposing commander was done making mistakes.

“I have a surprise for you,” Antesh said, moving to a nearby cart. “One of my men found it this morning when we were searching the bank.” The wych-elm bow had lost its string but otherwise seemed undamaged, the wood still gleaming, no nicks or scars to mar the carvings. “Seems the Father doesn’t want you to be parted from it,” Antesh observed.

Reva suppressed a sigh. It would be all over the city within hours. The Father returns the charmed bow to the Blessed Lady. More evidence of His benevolent sight.

She was appalled to find an echo of the townsfolk’s reverence in the Lord Archer’s gaze as he handed her the bow. Even him, she thought. Is that where the Father’s sight truly resides? In the gaze of those who cling to him for hope and deliverance. “Thank you, my lord,” she said. “I’ll be on the wall if you need anything.”

It took another ten days, the unending crunch of the stones on the wall a constant reminder that the sand in their glass was running low. Reva took to sitting cross-legged on the battlements some fifty paces short of the breach, watching the great globes come rushing down. It was a strangely compelling sight to see them descend in a blur, dust and stone exploding upwards as they found their mark. She entertained a faint hope she would be spotted by the Volarian commander and he would waste a few stones trying to crush her, but if he had seen her, it appeared he was in no mood for distractions.

Afternoons were usually spent in the healing house helping Brother Harin or visiting with Arken, still recovering from his arrow wound. Despite the brother’s best efforts the wound had contrived to fester, necessitating some deft work with the scalpel and a liberal application of corr-tree oil. “You stink,” Reva told him the following day, wrinkling her nose at the acrid aroma.

“The smell I can get used to,” he said. “The sting’s the worst of it.”

“From Veliss.” She placed a bag of sugared nuts next to his bed. “Make them last, there won’t be any more.”

“Promise me,” he said, reaching for her hand, eyes dark with serious intent. “You’ll call for me when they come. Don’t let me die in this bed.”

You’ve a lot of years ahead, she wanted to say, but stopped herself. He may be young but he’s no fool. “I promise,” she said.

For all their apparent devotion, and despite the increase in rations, the mood of the people darkened as the breach widened. There were fewer shouts of adulation as she walked the streets, and she often saw people weeping openly, one old man surrendering to despair and collapsing to the cobbles, hands clamped over his ears against the slow drumbeat of the engines’ labour. And the Reader kept preaching.

Veliss’s reports told of the old man’s increasingly deranged sermons. He would often speak for hours with no reference to the Ten Books, the words “heretic” and “judgement” most prominent in his rantings. “A mad old man screaming in a hall,” Reva had said in answer to Veliss’s worried frown.

“True,” she replied. “But the hall isn’t empty. In fact it’s more full than ever.”

A stone crashed into the breach, raising another cloud of dust and shattered masonry. Reva turned her gaze to the ships and found them busier than usual, the engineers rushing to and fro as they hauled ropes and worked levers, the engines swivelling on their mounts with slow deliberation.

She walked to the lip of the breach, staring down at the dust-shrouded wreckage below. Stones that had stood for centuries reduced to rubble in a few weeks. A familiar thrum sounded from the engines as they launched in unison, the stones describing their lazy arcs against a clear sky, smashing into the wall some two hundred paces north of where she stood.

She raised her gaze to the Volarian warship. The awning cast a dark shadow but she could just see him, a tall figure staring back. It may have been her imagination, or a trick of the light, but she fancied she saw him offer a bow.

“My lady . . .” A faint call behind her. She turned to find a woman hurrying up the steps to the battlements, a wailing bundle in her arms. The young Asraelin mother from the other day, face pale and drawn in fear. Reva rushed to her, reaching out a steadying hand as she swayed a little, her breath laboured, the words barely audible above the child’s cries.

“They took her,” she gasped. “Lady Veliss hid us but they took her, and all the other Faithful.”

“Who did? Where?”

“A great many people, shouting about the Father’s judgement.” She paused, hugging the child to her. “They said they were taking them to the Reader.”