Rebellion

CHAPTER 43

Rix pounded around the battlements, praying that he would reach Basalt Crag in time. And that when he arrived, he still had strength to fight.

The hail had stopped and the rain had eased a little, but the lightning was as ferocious as ever. And he made a fine target, being the tallest man on the wall. The great dome had been struck repeatedly, and several of the smaller domes as well, while a strike on one of the lower roofs had blasted roof slates everywhere and set alight the framing timbers beneath, though the deluge had put the fire out in seconds.

The wind was gusting wildly, shifting from one quarter to another as the storm passed overhead. Now it was blasting hard rain into his face, stinging his battered cheek and getting into his eyes, half blinding him. A savage gust that almost lifted him off his feet drove him sideways into a battlement. Had he been passing a low point in the wall it might have carried him over the edge.

Where was everyone? There had been no guards at the last tower, and there were none on this section of wall either. He stopped, momentarily confused. No lightning had flashed for a minute now and the dark was impenetrable.

Rix forced the plan of the defences into his mind. Ah, yes! He was halfway along the escarpment side, where the wall rose up from solid rock to twice the height of the entrance wall, at least sixty feet. Not even the Cythonians would try to attack here, for there was no solid ground on which to place their ladders.

Focus! He was only a couple of hundred yards from Basalt Crag. Lightning flashed, illuminating the way ahead, and he put his head down and ran. If he got there in time, and by some miracle they beat off this attack, it would not only gain Garramide some breathing space, but it would improve morale in the fortress immeasurably.

Rix was only a hundred yards away when, in a momentary lull in the storm, he heard a curious clacking sound from below. He froze, ducked behind the battlement, and carefully peered over the wall.

A distant flash of lightning froze an instant of the scene below. Not enough to resolve the individual dark-clad figures huddled against the base of the wall, but enough to produce paired reflections from at least a dozen eyes, looking straight up.

Had they seen him? Since he had been looking down, there could be no reflection from his eyes, though they might have noticed the outline of his head against the lightning-lit sky. If they had, their archers would be waiting, and the next time he looked over they would put their arrows through his face.

Did they have scaling ladders, or were they attacking the wall itself? It was very thick here and quite a few bombasts would be needed to breach it. But for all he knew, they might have a dozen.

What to do? The bigger danger, he felt sure, was at Basalt Crag… though the men he’d sent would be there by now, and one more, even himself, would make little difference.

However if they climbed onto the wall here, or breached it and got into the fortress without anyone knowing, they could take the women and children hostage and force a surrender.

He dared not look down from here. Rix scurried along the wall for thirty feet, to a point where he would be in shadow when the lightning flashed, and gingerly peered over. Half a dozen troops were raising a scaling ladder. Further along, another group was working at the base of the wall. A faint light flickered there, though not enough to reveal what they were up to. It wasn’t an orange light though, as though they had been igniting a fuse. It was a pale, steady blue, like the light of a partly shuttered glowstone lantern.

Could they be assembling some mechanical contrivance? There was no way to tell. He crept back until he was directly above them, then rose to his full height and took hold of the heavy capstone on top of the riser of the battlement.

Loose capstones were a defensive innovation Swelt had mentioned in one of his inventories. At least, it had been an innovation a thousand years ago, though since Garramide had never been besieged it could not have been used. Would it still work?

The capstones were not mortared on, but mounted on brass pins set in the stone beneath. The capstones could not slide or fall, but two strong men could lift one off its pins and drop it on any attackers below. Could one very strong but weary man do it by himself? Or had time and the elements cemented the capstone immoveably onto the wall?

He rose beneath it, took hold of the overhang of the capstone on the left with his good hand, and the overhang on his right with the steel gauntlet, then strained until his back clicked. The capstone did not budge. He tried again, with the same result.

It could not be done. No man save the late, unlamented Arkyz Leatherhead could have lifted one of these. Nonetheless, Rix took another grip, crouched, raised his arms until they were straight, locked them and slowly, slowly began to straighten his legs.

The strain was immense. He could feel his back spasming, and began to fear that he would dislocate his shoulder, or that the steel gauntlet would shatter his right wrist bones. He strained harder, taking it slowly, and the capstone inched up on the right-hand side, then the left. Higher, higher. Not far to go now. Then it stopped and he could raise it no further.

He was about to let it down when a familiar voice spoke, in a hoarse whisper. “You bloody fool, Rix. Why can you never ask for help? I’ve got it. Heave, now!”

Rix heaved, the other man did too, and with a faint rasp of stone on stone the capstone went over the edge and fell away.

A muffled thud, a scream of agony, then a bombast went off with unimaginable ferocity, shaking the wall and grinding the other capstones back and forth on their pins.

Rix looked over the side, carefully. The wall was not badly damaged, for the bombast had not been fixed in place and most of the blast had gone outwards. But of the enemy soldiers who had been huddled there, there was no trace.

The other dozen, who had been halfway up the scaling ladder, were scattered across the rocky ground and the ladder was broken.

Rix rubbed his ringing ears and turned around, half expecting that the voice had been a hallucination brought on by the strain. If so, it was a fleshly one. His eyes stung with tears as successive flashes lit the dirty, bewhiskered, grinning face of the friend he had given up for dead weeks ago.

“Tobry? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you, Deadhand.”

“I thought you were done for.”

“I should be, but this isn’t the time for a beer and a yarn about it.”

They embraced, and he clung to his friend for a long moment, before pulling away.

“They’re attacking further along with scaling ladders. Have you been there?”

“Nope,” said Tobry. “Heard the fighting and climbed the wall up from the escarpment. Seemed the safest way in, all things considered.”

Rix froze. He’d ruled out an attack on the escarpment side because it was almost sheer. “Do you reckon the enemy could do the same?”

“One or two might get up, if they can climb wet rock as well as I can. Which seems doubtful, since they’ve lived all their lives in dry, horizontal tunnels.”

Rix relaxed. “I’ve never met anyone who can climb as well as you. The night old Luzia was murdered, you carried me up the outside wall of my tower, single-handed.”

“What a lousy night that was.”

The storm was passing, but the icy southerly wind behind it was picking up, the rain turning to driven snow.

“It’s damn cold up here,” said Tobry.

“They say there’s a blizzard coming. A bad one.”

They headed around the wall. Tobry was limping badly, favouring his right thigh. Rix’s back ached as if he had strained it. But the pain was nothing. It was irrelevant now. Tobry was back! The world had resumed its proper orbit. Everything was going to be all right.

“I’d sooner fight my way in through the front gate, personally. But then, you always did have a way with walls.”

“Driving you up them, you mean?” Tobry chuckled.

“It’s not far now,” Rix said quietly.

They were approaching Basalt Crag, and when the lightning flashed he could see men fighting on the wall.

“The enemy are up,” he whispered. “Keep low and we might take them by surprise.”

He drew Maloch, and Tobry his own sword, then they crouched and ran. The fighting was furious; dozens of Cythonians had reached the top and Rix could not see many defenders. Three scaling ladders stood against the wall and more enemy troops were streaming up them.

“If we can make a bit of a breathing space,” Rix said quietly, “we might be better off attacking the ladders.”

“Good idea. I’ll follow your lead. But first, let’s hit the bastards hard.”

They hurtled into the attack, side by side, carving through several lines of the enemy before they realised they were being attacked from behind. With Maloch in his left hand and Tobry by his side, Rix felt no harm could come to him. He dropped several of the enemy with blows from his steel fist.

A ragged cheer broke out from further along the wall. “Deadhand, Deadhand!” The defenders did not know Tobry but Rix’s height, bulk and steel-gauntleted right hand were unmistakeable. They attacked with renewed vigour and soon the enemy on the wall, besieged on both sides, were fighting for their lives.

“I’ll hold the line here,” said Tobry. “Go after the ladders.”

Rix hesitated, but only for a moment. Tobry was a fine swordsman.

Rix ran along the battlements, looking over. The soldiers on the furthest ladder were closest to the top of the wall. They would be attacking within a minute. He raced down, took hold of the top of the ladder and shook it.

The men were well trained; none of them fell. He shook it again. They clung on, then resumed the climb. Rix wrenched the ladder from side to side, trying to make it slip at the base, but it was securely mounted and two men held it steady.

The wind howled and a flurry plastered them with snow. The blizzard was almost on them. Rix wiped snow out of his eyes.

This wasn’t going to work. Unsheathing Maloch, he reached down as far as he could and, taking advantage of a momentary darkness, dealt the top three rungs a ferocious blow, cutting them in half. Had the men on the ladder seen? He did not think so. He took hold of the two sides of the ladder, locked his steel gauntlet against one side, then wrenched with all the strength in his arms.

Too late the soldiers realised what he was up to, but they were holding onto the rungs, not the side rails, and Rix’s mighty heave tore the rungs out of the rails, all the way down. He thrust one rail left, the other right, and watched the men fall. It might not kill them, but after falling that far onto rock they were bound to break bones.

An arrow glanced off the battlements, driving chips of stone into his swollen cheek. He ignored the flare of pain and ran for the second ladder, though he did not plan to use the same trick twice. Not with their archers watching for him. He picked up a dead Cythonian lying on the wall and pushed his head and shoulders over. Three arrows went through the man’s throat. The enemy archers were dangerously good.

Sheltering behind the body, Rix heaved the dead man down the ladder. As the body fell, it knocked the climbers off one by one and the tumbling figures cannoned into the men steadying the ladder, which toppled.

One ladder left. He was planning on dealing with it the same way when a cornet sounded from the darkness below. The surviving enemy scrambled down the ladder and retreated into the blizzard, leaving their dead behind.

The fighting on the wall was over. Rix leaned back against the wet stone and closed his eyes for a moment, but could still see the dead and the dying. Not far away, a signal horn sounded the three-note call — send up the healers.

If only he had proper healers. Damn Oosta. What kind of a healer took both of her assistants away on the eve of battle? People were going to die because of her stupidity.

He wiped his face, then headed along to his troops. They were checking the fallen men, heaving the enemy over the side and laying Garramide’s dead along the inside wall. The injured still lay where they had fallen on the bloody stone. A man and a woman, both wearing red healers’ armbands, ran up. The man began checking the fallen, sorting them into those who needed immediate attention, those who could wait, and those who could not be saved. The other healer was Astatin, the witch-woman.

Glynnie wasn’t there. What if she had been killed? “Where’s Glynnie?” he called.

Astatin was holding a man’s partly severed arm and muttering incantations. She did not reply.

“Don’t know,” said the man.

Rix told himself to calm down. It was impossible to keep track of everyone in the chaos of battle. Glynnie could be anywhere. But the fear would not go away. He looked around for Tobry but could not see him either.

“It’s over,” grinned a bloodstained Nuddell. “We must’ve killed a hundred of the buggers here.”

“Plus another twenty or more round the corner. They were trying to blow a hole in the wall,” said Rix, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He shook hands with Nuddell and the other men at the front. “That was well fought, lads.”

“We’ve done for a third of them, then, and plenty more injured. But without you coming up the back way and surprising them, it could have been tricky.”

“Very tricky,” said Rix. Running the long way around the wall hadn’t been a stupid blunder — it had been the best thing he could do. He wasn’t a fool and a failure after all. “How many have we lost?”

Nuddell’s grin faded. “Fourteen men dead, here, and nineteen injured, some badly. Bad enough, but it could have been a lot worse.”

“Any man lost is one too many,” said Rix. And there had been more casualties along the wall, and at the gate. But thankfully Tobry wasn’t among them. He was limping up now. His clothes were in tatters and a bloody bandage was tied around his left thigh.

“Sergeant Nuddell, meet my old friend Tobry Lagger.”

They shook hands. “Never seen a blade worked so well as yours,” said Nuddell.

“I used to practise,” said Tobry. “Have they gone?”

“Yes, but it’s not over yet,” said Rix. “Not by a long way.”

“Still, something to celebrate,” said Nuddell.

“Oh yes,” said Rix, putting an arm around Tobry’s shoulders. “I’m not planning to stop for a week.”

He pulled free. There were a dozen things to do first, and not least of them, making sure Glynnie was all right. “Nuddell, take Tobry downstairs. Ask Swelt to fix him up with a bath and a room. I’m going to walk around the wall, just to make sure of everything.”

“Keep your head down, Deadhand,” said Nuddell. “They could have longbow snipers out.”

Nuddell and Tobry went down. Rix continued along the wall to each of the towers, thanking his men individually and sending all but the night guards below.

“Do you think they’ll attack again?” said his captain, Noys, who was on the left-hand tower beside the gates.

The wind shrieked. Rix took shelter behind one of the battlements, but the frigid wind had already leached the battle warmth out of him, and every bruise, wound and muscle strain was throbbing. For the enemy, exposed on the windswept plateau with no shelter save their tents, things would be getting desperate by midnight.

“Blizzard’s going to get a lot worse, and it can kill them quicker than we can. They can’t climb ladders in this wind; certainly can’t fight in it. They’ll have to take shelter until the blizzard passes.”

“I’m going to keep watch for a while,” said Noys. “I don’t trust the bastards.”

“Me either,” said Rix. “Take special care of the sentries. Make sure they’ve got gloves and furs. No more than half an hour on the wall without going in to warm themselves at the braziers. And plenty of hot drinks.”

Noys saluted. “I’ll see to it.” He turned away, then turned back. “Heard what you did further up, Lord Deadhand. You saved us, and we won’t forget it.”

“We all did our bit.”

“Aye, but you made the difference. I’ll follow you anywhere, Lord.”

“Thank you, Noys.” Rix swallowed. “That means everything to me.”

He shivered convulsively. The cold was creeping right through him now, and as he went down the icy steps, his rubbery knees could barely support him. He’d been out in the cold far too long.

But there was so much to do. He clapped his hands together and headed across the yard, then into the healery. And froze, for it looked more like an abattoir.

Three lines of four trestle tables had been set out and a seriously injured man lay on each. Most were bleeding, the blood seeping from temporary bandages, puddling on the tables then dripping on the floor. Two servant girls, no more than ten years old, were cleaning the floor with bloody mops, though the blood accumulated as fast as they could clean it away. Two even smaller girls came staggering in carrying buckets of steaming water.

A severed right leg lay on a table inside the door, along with a mashed, freshly amputated pair of hands, and at the back a tall, bald soldier, dead from a horrific head wound. Droag. Rix hadn’t liked the man, but he didn’t want to see him like this, either — taken from life by a single smashing blow.

Two blood-covered men — amateur healers — were holding down an injured soldier while a woman with a bone saw cut off his shattered right arm. The man was eerily silent. And there was Glynnie, down the far end of the room, leaning over a screaming man who had been bound to the table, stitching a foot-long gash across his chest.

He went down to her as she completed the last stitch and began to bandage the wound. Glynnie was as pale as the snow on the windowsill and swaying with exhaustion. Her clothes were still wet and she was shivering fitfully.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink?” said Rix.

“There’s no time. No one else knows as much about healing as I do. If I stop now, men will die.”

Rix cursed Oosta yet again. “What can I do to help?”

“This is my job, not yours. You’ve been fighting for our lives.”

“If there’s no one else better to do it, it’s my job. I’ve attended plenty of injuries in my time. Give the orders and I’ll see them done.”