Tower Lord

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reva

Reva could hear the Reader’s voice before she reached the square, making her wonder how such an old man could shout so loud.

“. . . the Father’s Sight is taken from us, stolen by these wretched Heretics . . .”

She sprinted into the square, finding it full of people from end to end, crowding around with eyes fixed on the centre, rapt by the Reader’s words.

“. . . this city is the Father’s gift! The jewel given unto the Loved and named for his greatest servant! But we have allowed the corruption of unbelief to fester here . . .”

“Move aside!” Reva began shoving her way through the crowd, most onlookers making way when they saw her face, others proving more reluctant and she was in no mood to be gentle. “Move I said!” she snarled, the man who reached out to grasp her arm staggering back with a bloody nose. Her passage was a little easier after that.

“. . . cleanse this city! Those are the Father’s words to me, revealed in the Ten Books, though I have laboured long to find another course. ‘Make my city pure again and my Sight will fall on you once more . . .’”

She struggled free of the crowd, emerging to find the square filled with kneeling people, all bound with rope and surrounded by men with swords. She noticed a few of the sword-bearers were priests whilst others were mostly men of middling years, some a little too old to have seen service on the walls. At the sight of her a few grew visibly discomforted, but there were plenty who stared at her with stern-faced defiance, one even stepping forward to block her path as she moved towards the Reader.

Her sword came free of the scabbard in a blur and the man drew up short. With a shock Reva recognised him as the fruit seller who had sold her an apple that first day on the cathedral steps. “Get out my way,” she instructed him, voice soft and full of dire promise. The fruit seller paled and stepped back.

“She comes!” the Reader intoned from the cathedral steps. “As I foretold. The whore’s bastard pupil, the falsely blessed.”

Reva’s gaze took in the sight of Brother Harin, kneeling with a bloodied face in the front row of captives. Veliss knelt beside the healer, arms tied behind her back and a wooden gag secured in her mouth. Arken knelt at her side, hardly able to keep upright, his skin pale and head sagging.

“I have a blessing for you,” Reva told the Reader, breaking into a run, a red haze clouding her vision. “It’s made of steel, not words.”

The Reader’s pet priest tried to stop her, casting an inexpert thrust at her chest with a rapier. It clattered to the tiles along with two of his fingers. The Reader was flanked by his bishops and she found it significant that none came forward to shield him from her charge, most staring in shock or deciding to avert their gaze, although she was sure she glimpsed a smile or two. The old man fell like a bundle of rags as she grasped his robe, forcing him to the steps, sword drawn back.

“The priest!” she said. “Who is he? I know he answers to you.”

“Such sin.” The old man shook his head, madness and wonder in his eyes. “Such corruption of holy flesh. You, the one promised as our salvation, vile with unnatural lust . . .”

“Just tell me!” She forced him lower, the sword point pressing through his robe.

“The bright light of your sacrifice would unite us. It was promised to him by the Father’s own messenger . . .”

“REVA!”

It was the only voice that could have stopped her. She turned to see her uncle hobbling through the crowd, people backing away with heads lowered. He made a pathetic sight, a wasted, dying man shuffling along, using an old sword as a walking stick. But there was dignity there too, a command in the unwavering gaze he cast about him, a few of the sword-bearers lowering their weapons as he made his slow progress to the steps.

Reva let go of the Reader, stepping back as her uncle came to a wheezing halt a few steps below. “I think,” he said in a thin gasp, “our people should like to hear your news.”

“News, uncle?” she asked, chest heaving with repressed rage.

“Yes. The Father’s revelation. It’s time we shared it.”

Revelation? Reva’s gaze tracked over the crowd, seeing a confusion of expression on the assembled faces; fear and hope but mostly just great uncertainty. That’s what he offers, she realised, glancing down at the Reader. Certainty. The lie of a great truth. Killing him won’t disprove it.

“Lord Vaelin Al Sorna rides to our relief!” she told them, casting her voice as wide as she could. “He rides towards us now with a great and powerful army!”

“Lies!” the Reader hissed, getting slowly to his feet. “She seeks to usurp the Father’s words with lies! Invoking the name of the Darkblade no less!”

“Al Sorna is not the Darkblade!” she shouted as the crowd began to murmur. “He comes to save us. I am Lady Reva Mustor, heir to the Chair of this fief and daughter to the Trueblade. You call me blessed, you believe the Father’s Sight rests upon me. I say it rests upon all of us. And the Father does not reward murder.”

“They shun the Father’s love!” The Reader cast a bony hand at the kneeling captives. “Their presence within these walls weakens us!”

“Weakens us?” Reva picked out the fruit seller who had confronted her earlier. “You! You have a sword. Why haven’t I seen you on the wall?”

The man shuffled and looked around warily. “I have a daughter and three grandchildren, my lady . . .”

“And they’ll die unless we hold this city.” She turned on a priest standing near the steps, a portly man with a thin-bladed sword dangling from his plump hand like a wet twig. “You, servant of the Father, I haven’t seen you either. But this man”-she pointed at Arken-“him I’ve seen, fighting and shedding blood in your defence. Whilst this man”-she pointed at Brother Harin-“works tirelessly to tend our wounded. And this woman . . . ” Veliss’s eyes were wide above the gag, shining bright. “. . . this woman has served this fief faithfully and well for years, and worked without pause or rest to secure this city and ensure all are fed.”

Her gaze blazed at the crowd. “They do not weaken us. You do! You are the weakness here! You come here like the slaves our enemy would make us, bowing down to this lying old man, filling your hearts with easy hate when you know the Father only ever spoke of love!”

She looked at the portly priest once more. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.” He stared at her, his sword falling from his grasp to clatter onto the tiles. She cast her gaze over the other sword-bearers, each dropping his blade as her eyes met their faces, looking away in shame or staring back in wonder.

There was a commotion off to the right as Antesh and Arentes forced their way through the throng, the entire House Guard behind them along with dozens of archers and Realm Guard. Reva held up a hand as they advanced towards the disarmed men, then pointed at the captives. “Free these people, my lords, if you would.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the Reader, his face white with either rage or disbelief. “The cathedral is closed until further notice. Don’t show your face outside it again.” She sheathed her sword and descended the steps towards the Fief Lord, reaching out to him. “I think you need a nap, Uncle.”

He nodded wearily, smiling then blinking in shock, eyes widening in alarm at something behind her. She turned to find the Reader flying towards her, a dagger raised high in his bony hand, yellowed teeth bared in a hate-filled grimace, too fast and too close to side-step or parry. Something blurred in the corner of her eye and the Reader doubled over before her, the dagger scraping a shallow cut on her arm as he collapsed onto the cathedral steps, her grandfather’s sword buried in his belly. He coughed, twitched and died.

She caught her uncle as he fell, cradling his head on her lap, her hand on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart slowing. “Never . . . killed anyone . . . before,” he said. “Glad it . . . turned out to be . . . him.” His hand fluttered to her cheek and she held it there. “Don’t . . . doubt the Father’s love . . . my wonderful niece. Promise me.”

“I won’t, Uncle. Not now, not ever.”

He smiled, his red eyes dimming. “Brahdor,” he whispered.

“Uncle?”

“The man the priest called lord . . . His name . . . Brahdor . . .” The bony hand went limp in her grasp. His eyes still stared up at her but she knew they saw nothing.

Fief Lord Sentes Mustor was laid to rest in the family crypt within the manor walls. By Reva’s order only she and the coffin bearers were present. She had wanted Veliss at her side but the lady was too stricken by the day’s events to attend, stumbling back to the manor white-faced and locking herself in her room. Reva sent the bearers away and sat by the coffin until nightfall. It was a plain pine box, incongruous next to the ornately carved marble of her forebears, something she would have to fix in time. Outside the faint thump of engine-cast stones could be heard as they ate another breach into her wall. Antesh reported that it was only another two weeks away from completion.

She had hoped sitting here with the bones of her ancestors might provoke some vision or insight, a cunning stratagem to win the day when the final stone fell. But all she earned was a cold behind and a sense of loss so great it felt as if some invisible hand had scooped out her insides.

She rose and went to the coffin, touching her fingers to the unvarnished wood. “Good-bye, Uncle.”

Veliss opened the door at the seventh knock, red-eyed and pale. A ghost of a smile played on her lips before she turned back, leaving the door open. Reva closed it behind her, watching Veliss sit at her desk where a piece of parchment waited, half-covered in her fine script. “My formal letter of resignation,” she said, picking up the quill. “I think I’ll take you up on that horse, and the gold. When this is all over, naturally. I hear the Far West offers many opportunities . . .”

She fell silent as Reva came to place her hands on her shoulders, eyes raising to meet hers in the mirror as they lingered. “I thought it was a stain.”

Reva bent to press a kiss to her neck, exulting in the thrill of delight as she provoked a gasp. “It washed.” She took Veliss’s hands and drew her towards the bed. “Now it’s a gift.”

Is it wrong? she wondered the following morning. To feel so good at a time such as this? She had been fighting to keep the smile from her face all through the council with her captains, scrupulously avoiding catching Veliss’s eye for fear of a betraying grin or blush. Her uncle dead, the Reader slain on the steps of his own cathedral and the city on the verge of destruction, but all she could think about was the wondrous night before.

“It’s just not enough,” Antesh was insisting to Arentes, his knuckles thumping onto the map on the library table. “We’ll hold them at the breaches for no more than a few hours, and all the time you can bet they’ll be making a fresh assault on the walls to draw off our strength.”

“What else can we do?” the old guard commander asked. “This city’s defence rests on its walls. There is no provision, no plan for anything else. My lady”-he turned to Reva-“it might help if we had some notion of how long the Dar-, Lord Al Sorna will take in getting his army here.”

Reva stopped the amused frown before it reached her brow. He believed me. Seeing the intent gaze of Lord Antesh she realised the old guardsman was not alone. They actually think the Father has sent me some holy vision. “Such . . . details were not revealed to me, my lord,” she replied. “We must plan on holding this city as long as possible.”

Antesh sighed, returning his gaze to the map. “Perhaps if we build towers here and here, just behind the new walls. Pack them with archers to loose down at them as they rush through . . .”

Reva surveyed the map as he went on, noting how circular it was, the empty space of the square in the centre like the bull’s-eye of an archer’s target, the surrounding streets ordered in a circular pattern radiating outwards. She reached for a charcoal stub and began to draw on the map. “We have been thinking on too small a scale,” she told the two lords, tracing a series of black circles through the streets, each one smaller than the last. “Not two inner walls, six. Each to be held for as long as possible. Archers on every rooftop. The streets are narrow so their numbers won’t matter so much. When one wall is breached, we fall back to the next.”

Arentes looked at her plan for a good while before commenting, “It’ll mean tearing down a quarter of the city.”

“The city can be remade, its people can’t.” She looked at Antesh. “My lord?”

The Lord of Archers gave a slow nod. “It seems the Father’s blessing is not misplaced. But it’ll take a mighty effort to have it all done by the time the breach is complete.”

“Then let’s be about it. Besides I think the people will welcome any distraction from the sound of those bloody stones.”

Veliss organised work gangs based on neighbourhood allegiance, putting a skilled builder in charge of each one. They worked in seven-hour shifts, no-one was hungry now as rationing had been abandoned in the face of more pressing need. They worked through the night pulling down houses that had stood for centuries, their bricks moulded into the new barricades which had quickly been dubbed the Blessed Lady’s Rings. The taller houses were turned into miniature fortresses with wooden platforms added to the rooftops to accommodate additional archers, each one well-stocked with arrows and weapons. A series of walkways was also constructed across the rooftops, allowing reinforcements to be rushed from one point to another.

Reva spent the time rehearsing the House and City Guard in their response to the coming Volarian assault. “Is this really necessary now?” Veliss asked, watching the soldiers running from the wall for the tenth time as Reva counted down the seconds.

“Every one we kill on the wall or in the breaches is one we don’t have to kill in the streets,” Reva replied. She strode over to where the House Guard sergeant stood wheezing with his men. “Better than last time, but still too slow. Do it again.”

“You’re lucky they love you,” Veliss observed as the guardsmen trooped back to the stairs.

“I’m discovering the Father’s Blessing can do wonders, real or imagined.”

Veliss nodded, pursing her lips. “I, ah, thought I’d take another look at the stocks in the cellar. Should take an hour, perhaps longer.”

She gave a precisely formal bow and strode away, Reva hoping the guardsmen would ascribe the flush on her cheeks to the recent exertions. This was how it had been since that first glorious night, hurried but delightful fumblings in dark corners, the sense of stealing private pleasures adding a wicked charm to every encounter.

“Working hard?”

She turned to find Arken walking towards her with a stiff gait, his face tense with suppressed pain. “Go back to bed,” Reva instructed him flatly.

“Another minute of the healing house and I’ll go mad,” he replied. “Brother Harin is a good man, but his stories never end. This is his fifth war, you know? He’ll tell you all about the others in great detail, if you let him.”

She saw the determination in his gaze and let it drop. “Lord Antesh requires help in the eastern quarter,” she said. “There’s an old wine-shop with unusually deep foundations.”

He nodded, hesitating. “We’re never going to the Reaches, are we? Even if we win this.”

Looking at his broad, honest face she saw the boy he had been replaced by the good and brave man he now was. It hurt, because she knew he couldn’t stay with her now. She might want a brother but he already had a sister. “I’ve decided on Lady Governess of Cumbrael,” she said. “As my formal title. As you said, Fief Lady didn’t sound right.”

“Lady Governess,” he repeated with a grin. “Suits you.” He gave an overly florid bow, wincing and rubbing his back as he straightened then walked off towards the eastern quarter.

She was with Veliss when the stones stopped falling, lying entwined on a pile of furs in a shadowed corner of the manor cellar, sweat-covered and panting. “I love your hands,” Veliss said, entwining their fingers together, nuzzling at her neck.

“They’re rough, callused and the nails are horrible,” Reva replied. “Though my feet are worse.”

“You’re mad.” Veliss raised herself up to kiss her, lips lingering, tongue probing. “There isn’t an inch of you that isn’t gorgeous.”

Reva giggled as her lips moved lower, her hands bunching in Veliss’s rich, strawberry-flavoured hair . . .

“Wait!” she said as it came to her.

“What?” Veliss raised her head, pouting in annoyance.

“They’ve stopped.” After so long the absence of the stones on the wall was like an endless shout of silence. Reva disentangled herself and reached for her clothes.

“I thought I’d help Brother Harin with the wounded,” Veliss said as they dressed. “Not much else I can do now, is there?”

She stared at Reva with wide eyes, a frown of desperate hope on her brow. Reva strapped her sword across her back and paused to plant a kiss on her lips. “Stay safe.” She brushed the tousled hair back from Veliss’s forehead. “I love you.”

The Kuritai gave a soft grunt as the sword slashed across his eyes, the only time she had witnessed one express any pain. She leapt and planted both feet on his chest as he slashed the air, blind but still deadly. The kick propelled him to the wall, sending him tumbling over onto the heads of his comrades. Reva rolled to her feet, dodging sword thrusts from three directions, the House Guards closing around her, halberds stabbing and slashing.

She did a quick head count, finding she had lost half her command already. She glanced over at the inner wall around the first breach, noting the piles of Volarian dead and the constant rain of arrows delivered by the archers on the rooftops. But there was a cohesion to the attackers now, a hard knot of shielded men inching forward with more crowding in behind. It’s time.

“Break!” she shouted, lunging forward to spear the exposed neck of a Kuritai, then turning and running with the guards. They were faster than any practice, sprinting down the steps and vaulting the first of the rings without losing any more to the pursuing enemy. The Kuritai didn’t pause in their charge, coming on at a run to scale the new wall but falling by the dozen to the archers on the rooftops above. Those that did make it over were hopelessly outnumbered and soon hacked down.

“Remember the signal,” she told Sergeant Laklin. “Three blasts of the horn and you break for the next ring.”

“I remember, my lady.” Laklin wiped his sweat-streaked brow and gave a grin. “Made them pay for it, didn’t we?”

“That we did. Let’s see if we can exact the full price.”

She ran for the western section where Antesh was assembling his companies after breaking from the breach defences. She was forced to duck as one of the Volarian fireballs came crashing down a few yards ahead, scattering bricks and embers in a blast of heat and smoke. Antesh had anticipated this tactic, forming firefighting companies to safeguard the streets between the rings. They came running now with buckets in hand, older people mostly with a few youngsters. They attacked the blaze with all the ferocity of a company of guardsmen, sand and water quelling the flames in a few minutes. It had been surprisingly small considering the size of the fireball.

“Pays to live in a city of stone, my lady,” the fire-company leader said, a brawny woman of middling years Reva recognised from the line of petitioners the day she had intruded into the manor. Despite her words Reva could see half a dozen columns of smoke rising from the surrounding streets, evidence that some parts of the city were not so immune to fire.

“No letup, lads!” Antesh was on the rooftop overlooking the western section. He had placed his command post atop the home of the masons guild, the most sturdily built structure in the city, the walls thick and the windows narrow, perfect for bowmen. Below them the Volarians clustered about the wall with shields raised, more pouring through the breach behind. The Volarians seemed to be assaulting the wall itself rather than attempting to climb it, the occasional flash of short swords through the shields told of a concerted effort to hammer their way through the recently finished brickwork.

Reva took a clay pot of lamp oil and threw it at the knot of shields, the liquid exploding across them as it shattered. She followed it with a fire arrow, the Volarians soon forced to abandon their flaming shields, most perishing under the instant volley from the archers above. But there were more trooping through the breaches, always more.

From the right came the sound of two horn blasts, the signal for an imminent breach. “Keep holding here!” she told Antesh and sprinted for the nearest walkway.

Two battalions of Free Swords were attacking at different points along the north-facing ring, one was being held but the other had managed to force a toehold on the other side, a small but growing cluster of shields constantly assailed from above by a rain of arrows and other missiles. The defenders here were mostly townsfolk stiffened with a few archers and guardsmen, their lack of expertise remedied in some part by their ferocity. She saw a large, elderly man in the leather smock of a carpenter charge at the Volarian cluster with an axe in hand, several young apprentices close behind. On the surrounding rooftops people hurled rocks and bottles at the enemy along with a torrent of abuse.

“Die, you heretic fuckers!” a young woman screamed, lifting a large piece of masonry over her head and hurling it at the Volarians. It landed in the middle of their shields, leaving a hole. Reva saw her chance, sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt. She landed on the Free Sword who tried to lift his shield to plug the gap, breaking her fall and forcing him to the cobbles. The sword plunged through his open mouth and into his brain. She leapt again as the short swords came for her, spinning and twisting, the sword a flicker of silver, finding eyes and throats with terrible precision. Seeing her intervention, the townsfolk redoubled their efforts, the old carpenter laying about with his axe and voicing a roar as his apprentices hacked away with hatchets and hammers. Others came running from the surrounding houses, armed with knives and cleavers. Some had no weapons at all, running and leaping onto the Free Swords, hurling punches and gouging eyes.

The Volarian cluster soon broke apart under the assault, some trying to scramble back over the wall only to pitch over with arrows in their backs. Others fought to the end, one man managing to hold the townsfolk back as he stood over a fallen comrade, his sword moving with the expert economy and effect of a veteran as he forced the townsfolk to hold off. He snarled at them, shouting curses in his own language as they steeled themselves for the final rush, then stiffened at the sight of Reva.

“You’re very brave,” she observed, attacking without a pause. It was over quickly, the brave veteran coughing his last as her sword found the inch-wide gap below his breastplate.

“May I?” Reva asked the carpenter, gesturing for his axe. He handed it over in wordless awe.

“This man,” she told them, standing astride the veteran’s corpse and reaching down to remove his helmet. “Is probably a hero to our enemies. They need to know what happens to heroes in this city.”

She could hear the shouted orders on the other side of the wall, sergeants and officers marshalling their men for another try. The voices stilled to silence after she cast the veteran’s head over the wall.

“You fought well,” she told the townsfolk with a smile, keeping the annoyance from her voice as they all knelt before her. “Gather these weapons and stand ready. This is far from over.”

They held the outer ring until nightfall. The breakthrough came in the east-facing wall, a slave-soldier battalion suffering fearful casualties to bring down a section of wall with a battering ram, Kuritai rushing through to consolidate the success. Lord Arentes had ordered three horn blasts sounded and the pre-rehearsed withdrawal commenced. Archers covered the retreat from the rooftops, loosing five arrows then retreating twenty paces to pause and loose five more. In the streets below people hauled carts and furniture to bar the path of the onrushing Volarians for a few precious seconds before running to the next ring.

Reva took her bow and stood on the tallest rooftop behind the second ring, watching the last of the defenders running across the fifty yards of flattened city that formed the killing ground. Fortunately the Volarians’ blood was up; this was the fruit of their labours after all, slaughter and rape the inevitable reward for those who take a city. So they came streaming into the killing ground, swords raised, blood-crazed and shieldless.

Later, Antesh called it the finest hour in Cumbraelin archery and it had certainly been a spectacular sight. So many arrows crowded the air it was difficult to see the effect, like peering through smoke to glimpse the fire beyond. Reva loosed six arrows in as many seconds, Arken straining to match her as he stood at her side, grimacing in pain with every draw of his longbow. The storm continued for a full minute, not a single Volarian soldier making it to the second ring. Antesh called a halt and the air cleared, revealing a carpet of bodies covering the killing ground, none closer than a dozen yards to the wall. The survivors could be seen hovering in the shelter of the streets beyond, a few men stumbling about in the open with arrows protruding from their limbs, Varitai from their oddly calm expressions.

Reva finished them herself, one arrow each, an ugly growl rising from the defenders when the last fell, soon building to a prolonged roar of hate-filled defiance.

There was no respite that night, the Volarians trying fire in place of massed assaults, throwing oil pots over the ring followed by fire arrows. Once again the stones of the city came to their aid and most of the fires were swiftly quelled. But whilst stone couldn’t burn, people could and Brother Harin soon had dozens of burnt souls crowding the cathedral. She had given it over to him as a healing house, the pews transformed into beds, becoming ever more full by the hour. Only one of the bishops had had the temerity to object, a wizened old cleric who held on to his staff with gnarled and trembling hands, scowling at her as he quoted the Ninth Book: “‘Only peace and love can reside in a house blessed by the Father’s sight.’”

“‘Turn not your gaze from those in need,’” she countered, calling on the Second Book. “‘For the Father never will.’ Get out of the way, old man.”

The burnt people were a pitiable sight, hair singed away, flesh turned black and red, given to terrible screams that only abated with large doses of redflower. “Another day like this and it’ll all be gone,” Veliss advised. She wore a plain dress covered in bloodstains and sundry dirt, sleeves rolled up and hair tied back, soot and sweat mingling on her face. Reva wanted very badly to kiss her, here and now in full view of the scowling old bishop and the Father, if in fact He ever cared to spare a glance for this place, which she doubted.

“Careful love,” Veliss said quietly, reading her gaze. “Turns out they’ll tolerate a lot, more than ever I thought they would. But not us.”

“I don’t care,” Reva said, reaching for her hand.

“Just win the battle, Reva.” Veliss’s thumb traced over her hand for a moment before she released it. “Then we’ll decide what we care most about.”

The second ring held through the night but by morning a fire had taken hold in a building near the south-facing wall. It was a storehouse for the weavers guild, packed with linens. The fire was too fierce to be contained, the heat soon proving unbearable to the defenders and Reva ordered a withdrawal to the next ring. It was more costly this time, the Volarians quicker to take advantage of the confusion, swarming over the wall whilst their own archers engaged the men on the rooftops, many falling into the struggling mass of bodies choking the streets below. Pockets of defenders were cut off, holding out in fortified houses and exacting a fearful toll on those sent to root them out.

Reva watched from a rooftop as Varitai tried repeatedly to storm a chapel a few streets away, squads attempting to scale the walls or force their way through the windows, their bodies soon flung out again. Eventually they surrounded the building and assailed it with a hundred or more oil pots before an officer threw a torch. The flames took hold quickly and the defenders came streaming from the chapel, not in panic but fury, throwing themselves at the Varitai with no trace of fear. Reva straightened in surprise at the sight of the man leading the defenders, portly and dressed in a priest’s robes, hacking at the Volarians with a thin-bladed sword. The priest from the square. He died of course, along with the others, hacked down and butchered in the street, but not before they had felled at least twice their number.

Reva was turning away when something impacted on the roof-tiles with a wet smack. It rolled along the roof to rest at her feet, slack leathery features and empty eyes staring up at her. She looked around as more impacts sounded, the heads raining down around her. She heard a woman screaming in the street below, perhaps in recognition of one of the disembodied missiles.

She went to the manor where Arentes and Antesh were conferring over a map. “Do we have any prisoners?”

There were a little over two dozen men herded into a corner of the manor grounds under close guard, most wounded and all mute with the expectation of death. They were all Free Swords-Kuritai and Varitai didn’t surrender and none of the defenders felt inclined to care for any too wounded to keep fighting. “All officers or sergeants,” Antesh explained. “Thought they might have something to tell us.”

“We’re in here, they’re out there,” Reva replied. “That’s all we need to know.” She turned to the House Guard sergeant in charge of the prisoners. “Any problem with this? If so, I’ll see to it myself.”

The sergeant gave a stern shake of the head and hefted his pole-axe. “Spread them around a bit,” Reva told him. “Throw them over where the Free Swords are thickest.”

She forced herself to stay and watch, finding it curious that so few of them begged or tried to run. They had to know there was no refuge for them here, that surrender had only delayed the inevitable. Most were too cowed and fearful to do any more than stumble weeping to the block, eyes closed or vomiting in terror as the axe fell, but one man was straight-backed and defiant, staring at Reva with hard eyes as he was forced to his knees. “Elverah,” he said.

Reva gave a slight nod in response.

“No better,” he said in thickly accented Realm Tongue. “No better than us.”

“No,” she replied. “I’m much worse.”

Somehow she had managed to sleep, waking on a rooftop near the square with Arken sitting on the edge. He had found a blanket to cover her though the chilled night air still left her shivering. “Might have bought us some respite,” he said. “The thing with the prisoners. There hasn’t been an attack for nigh on two hours.” There was no reproach or judgement in his voice, just tired acceptance.

“They’ll be back,” she replied, standing and working the stiffness from her limbs. “Lord Arentes had good things to say about the help you gave the Realm Guard yesterday. Seems they want to adopt you.”

“Not a decent archer amongst them,” he said with a shrug. “Easy to stand out.”

She pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders, surveying the half-ruined city before her, the fires burning in the streets taken by the Volarians, watching them scurry from doorway to doorway having learned not to linger in sight of the defenders’ archers. Below her, people huddled together in the cramped streets behind the third ring, sitting around cook fires or just slumped in exhaustion. There was little talk, just the occasional infant’s cry or a sergeant’s shouted rebuke to a weary guard.

“I lied, Arken,” she said.

“What about?”

“Al Sorna. There was no vision, no gift of the Father’s Sight. For all I know he’s still in the Reaches. Perhaps he never had any intention of coming to our aid. Why would he? This land is filled with those who curse his name.”

She heard him rise and soon felt his arms close around her, strong and warm. “Is that what you think?”

I came back to this land to find a sister, instead I found two. “No,” she breathed, stifling a groan at the sight of a column of Varitai mustering in the streets opposite the south-facing wall. “No. He’s coming.”

It began again in the small hours of the morning and continued all day, the Volarians attacking in strength at four separate points, each fresh assault preceded by a rain of engine-launched gifts. Not just captive defenders now, women and youths amongst the severed heads smacking into the cobbles as they steeled themselves for the next rush. Inevitably some broke at the sight, a townsman running from his company and vaulting over the wall when a girl’s head landed amidst their ranks, screaming with a meat cleaver in hand as he charged the Free Swords approaching the wall, soon disappearing under a mass of stabbing short swords.

Reva rushed to wherever the need was greatest, killing with bow or sword to restore the position. Sometimes just the sight of her was enough, people gathering courage and rejoining the fight as she appeared on the rooftops or leapt into their midst. But as the noon sun rose she knew the time had come and ordered the three blasts sounded.

She was running with Arken across a walkway towards the fourth ring when she saw Lord Arentes in the street below, fighting together with a small band of surrounded guardsmen, Varitai assailing them on all sides. “Steady now!” the old commander intoned as they slowly inched their way towards the safety of the third ring. “One step back.”

Reva unslung her bow and took down three Varitai in quick succession, but it wasn’t enough. A tight formation of Free Swords came charging in, crashing into the guardsman and shattering their ranks. She saw Arentes parry a sword thrust and deliver an overhand slash to his opponent, cutting him down but leaving his sword embedded in his shoulder. Reva re-slung the bow and leapt from the walkway, landing in the swirling battle with sword drawn, cutting down a Volarian lunging at Arentes. Another came for her but was crushed under Arken’s boots as he dropped from the walkway, hacking wildly with his axe.

“The wall my lord!” she told Arentes and they ran, scrambling over with the help of many defenders as the archers above drove the Volarians back.

She looked up to see Arken cresting the wall, a large silhouette against a clear blue sky, tumbling to a heap on the street before her. “Arken?”

His face was pressed into the cobbles, the flesh bunched, eyes dim and unseeing. A Volarian short sword protruded from his back.

The third ring held for no more than an hour, despite the killing she did around Arken’s corpse as the Free Swords came over the wall. All sense of time lost in the fury of it, no weariness could touch her. They came and she killed them until hands grabbed her and dragged her away. Her senses returned then, a red slick covering her sword arm from blade to shoulder, eyes fixed on Arken’s body lying amidst the Volarian dead, lost to sight as they rounded a corner and she was borne over the fifth ring.

“My lady?” Antesh stared into her face, hand rough on her shoulder. “Please, my lady.”

She blinked at him and got slowly to her feet. “How many left?”

“Half at most. We lost too many when the last ring fell.”

Arken . . . “Yes, we lost too many.”

She looked down at the sword in her hand, finding half the blade sheared off. She couldn’t remember breaking it. She tossed it to the cobbles and found a trough, sinking her head into the water to get the blood out of her hair. “We can’t hold here,” she told Antesh, raising her head from the water. “Fall back to the last ring. The killing ground is wider.”

Reva went to the manor as Antesh and Arentes organised the final defence. The sword was where she had left it, propped beside the fireplace in her uncle’s memory. She hefted it, finding it lighter than she remembered. The edge keen and bright, all trace of the Reader’s blood cleaned away. “You’re not what I came for,” she told the sword. “But you’ll do.”

The sixth and final ring was constructed around the cathedral square, every foot of it sheltering at least one defender. Those too old, injured or young to fight were crammed into the cathedral. The remaining guardsmen were arrayed in the square itself, ready to counter any breakthrough. They were weary, she could tell, but all stood straight as she approached, her grandfather’s sword resting on her shoulder.

“I thought it was time,” she said. “That I thanked you for your service. You are hereby dismissed with full honours and may depart at your leave.”

The laugh was surprisingly loud, if short-lived thanks to Lord Arentes’s glower of disapproval. “It can be said,” Reva went on, “that my family has not always deserved such great service. Nor in truth, have I. For I am not blessed, you see. I . . . am a liar . . .” She paused as a drop of rain fell onto her hand, strange, as the sky had been so clear for so long. She looked up to find the sky darkening, clouds forming with uncanny speed. Soon the rain was falling, driven by a hard wind, the fires on the other side of the ring dying under the deluge.

“My lady!” Antesh called from the walkway above, standing and pointing towards the south. “Something’s happening!”