Sister of the Sword

7

After so many days of sullen siege, the day of Moon-meet arrived with flourish and fanfare: blaring horns, shouts, and pounding hooves. Zannian formed his men into three large units separated by wide lanes. For some time after dawn, slaves ran back and forth in these lanes, carrying hanks of vine rope and tree trunks trimmed of branches. To the defenders of Yala-tene, it looked ominous.

The villagers spoke in low voices, speculating on what the raiders would do next. Only one woman was silent. Lyopi was hard-faced and pale in the morning light. She had not slept at night since the Jade Men entered Yala-tene. Catnaps in daylight were all the rest she could manage.

Young Hekani, now leading the defenders, said to those around him, “Looks like they mean to try to scale the walls again.”

“Stupid!” declared Montu the cooper. “It didn’t work before!”

“Maybe they have some new plan,” Hekani said. Lyopi remained silent, flexing her sore, callused hands around the shaft of her spear.

A boy came running up the ramp from the street below. He whispered into Hekani’s ear, and Hekani nodded to Lyopi. She shouldered her spear, took up her shield, and followed the child down to the village.

The raiders’ noisy preparations came to an end at last. A hush fell over the valley. From the wall, the villagers could easily see Zannian front and center in the middle block of horsemen. He raised his long spear high in one hand for all his hand to see. Dust rose behind him, and the open lanes between the squares of mounted raiders began to fill with men running toward Yala-tene.

Villagers shifted their weapons to throw. Hekani reminded them not to cast too early, to wait until the targets were close enough to hit.

Behind the first wave of raiders on foot came a slower-moving mob of ragged prisoners. Each bore a fascine, a large bundle of brush and twigs, on his or her back. Driving these fascine bearers were several raiders on foot. Whipcracks could be heard.

The villagers held off throwing their weapons at the fascine bearers, realizing that some of their own captured neighbors were likely among the pitiful prisoners.

The running raiders drew closer, as did the stumbling crowd of captives. Hekani was grim as he said, “Make ready!”

Lyopi ran up the ramp, resuming her place on the wall as the raiders reached the line of ditches and pits dug by the villagers. Not many fell in, but the ditches were only meant to slow an attack, not stop it. While the obstacles hampered the attackers, the defenders pelted the raiders with stones and javelins—simple wooden stakes with sharpened tips, rather than the hard-to-replace flint-heads. Raiders fell, skulls cracked by heavy stones or stabbed by javelins.

For a moment the attack hovered at the line of pits, then the captives arrived with their fascines, and the charge flowed on. As they neared the foot of the wall, the bombardment intensified. This was the moment the raiders’ previous attacks had always broken. Unable to climb the wall or batter it down, they would endure torment from above only for as long they could, before fleeing.

They did not flee this time. Goaded by whips and clubs, slaves hurled bundle after bundle of brushwood into the comers on each side of the west baffle. The villagers responded with a furious barrage, trying to avoid hitting the slaves with their missiles but forced to fight anyone they could reach.

Lyopi took aim at a wildly painted raider who was prodding forward a gray-haired woman, stooped by the weight of a large fascine. The old woman heaved off her burden, and it rolled down the slope, coming to rest against the foot of the wall. Lyopi was about to knock the raider behind her down with a well-placed javelin when the old woman lifted her eyes skyward.

“Jenla!” Tepa yelled, gripping Lyopi’s arm and halting her cast. “It’s Jenla! She’s alive!”

Sister of his deceased mate, Jenla was the beekeeper’s best and oldest friend. She’d been lost in one of the early battles outside the wall, and everyone in Yala-tene assumed she’d been killed.

Heedless of the spears flung by the raiders, Tepa ran to the edge of the parapet, calling for Jenla. Lyopi yelled at him to get back just as a stone-tipped missile hit the edge of the wall at his feet and shattered. Tepa reeled back, face bleeding from cuts caused by flying shards of flint.

Lyopi caught him by the shoulders and hauled him back. “Jenla’s down there! We must save her!” he moaned, pulling at her hands.

“There’s nothing we can do!” she snapped.

The attack seemed to be getting nowhere. Bundles of brush filled the corners of the baffle, but the pile never mounted very high. The fascines tended to roll down rather than build up to any height. Even so, the raiders continued to drive their reluctant prisoners forward to dump their loads. The ground around the western baffle was thick with bundles of dry brush and senseless or dead attackers.

Their loads delivered, the slaves ran away, still hounded by their pitiless taskmasters. Jenla was carried along by a gang of fleeing prisoners, but those on the wall could see the tan square of her face turn back to them as she was borne away. Tepa remained huddled on the ground, weeping, until Hekani stood over him with a spear.

“Tepa, get up and take this,” Hekani said. “Jenla’s best hope lies in our victory, and we need you for that.” Tepa stared up at the young man for a moment then stood, wiping the tears from his stubbled cheeks. He took the offered spear and gripped it tightly.

“This isn’t much of an attack,” Hekani said as the raiders retreated. “I guess Zannian was just talking big again.”

“They’re not done,” Lyopi told him. She shaded her eyes with one hand and surveyed the enemy horde. “Something else is stirring.”

A line of horsemen approached at a slow trot, dragging travois. Pairs of captives, empty-handed now, ran along behind them. The travois were laden with what looked like large wicker baskets plastered over with river mud.

The defenders were so puzzled that they allowed the horsemen to approach unchallenged. Seeing their slack-jawed confusion, Hekani exploded into profanity.

“What are you staring at? Let them have it! Fight! Fight!”

Pain and death rained down on the raiders. Their response was to ride faster. Bouncing wildly on the travois, a few of the baskets lost their lids. Smoke rose up from the open baskets, plumes of gray playing out behind the galloping riders.

Lyopi lowered the javelin she’d raised to throw. The meaning of the smoke struck her, and she screamed, “Fire! Everyone get back from the wall! Away from the baffle, now!”

The raiders galloped to the piles of fascines and stopped. Orders were shouted, and the prisoners grabbed the trailing ends of the travois and dumped their contents on the brush heaps. Hot coals scattered everywhere. Streamers of smoke rose, followed by the first flickers of flame.

Hekani shouted for water, and children waiting in the street below hurried to comply. Before any of them could return, the dry fascines began blazing. Two bonfires, one on each side of the baffle, drove the defenders off the parapet.

As they retreated along the wall to escape the flames, Hekani said, “This is new, but I don’t see the point. They can’t burn down stone walls!”

“Zannian’s driven us away from the entrance, hasn’t he?” Lyopi barked angrily. “They must mean to isolate it for further attack.”

The travois-dragging raiders rode away. From their positions by the river, the assembled raiders cheered the success of their new tactic. The cheering quickly faded when a new sound filled the battlefield—the deep, rhythmic pounding of many large drums.

Ungrah-de rested his giant axe on one shoulder. “Let the storm drums sing,” he rumbled.

Nacris, seated in her litter next to her towering ally, couldn’t stop an involuntary flinch as ten ogres behind them began to pound on hide-covered drums. The deafening sound was loud enough to be heard all over the Valley of the Falls. It rattled Nacris’s teeth.

The ogre chieftain nodded and added, “The power of the drums will fill the humans’ hearts with fear.”

Nacris did not remind him that his allies were human as well. It seemed impolite and not a little dangerous. Ungrah-de was dressed for battle in lapis-studded leather, the skulls of his victims hanging from his chest by thongs. More than a few of these trophies were human.

Since arriving in the Valley of the Falls, he and his ogres had killed sixteen of Zannian’s men in brawls—all of them provoked by foolish humans. Ungrah made no secret of his scorn for his frail, treacherous allies, and his barbed comments and contemptuous manner had goaded the hotheads into making stupid challenges. The worst incident had occurred on the ogres’ second night in camp. Two of Ungrah’s warriors asked for provender, and lazy raiders told them to find it themselves. The ogres took them at their word, went to the prisoners’ pen, and dragged out two young men. When the raiders realized what was going on, they stopped the ogres from slaughtering the humans. Words ensued, then a sharp fracas that cost the lives of eight of Zannian’s men. Half the raider band would have deserted then and there, but Nacris cajoled and threatened them into staying. Her performance that night had not been lost on Ungrah-de.

Now, looking down at her, he said, “You are the only one here I worry about.”

“Really?” she replied, flattered.

“These others”—he waved a dismissive hand at the raider host—“are wolves, eager to swarm over the weak or the few. Not you. You care nothing about danger. Your heart is dark. You would do anything to get what you want.”

“You’re right, great chief. I shrink from nothing.”

Surrounded by the punishing sound of ogre war drums, Nacris could hardly contain her excitement Emboldened by his backward praise, she asked Ungrah if one of his ogres would carry her into battle on his back. The chief responded to this notion with a withering glare.

“Females and cripples don’t belong in battle. A warrior of mine would stamp the life out of you before carrying you.”

As Ungrah did not offer idle warnings, she let the matter drop.

Gradually another more threatening sound joined the drums: The ogres were banging their axe heads against the bosses of their shields. The ominous clank was deliberately off the beat of the drums: boom, BOOM, clank; boom, BOOM, clank. From a monstrous heartbeat the noise now sounded like the advance of massive metallic creature—a dragon, perhaps.

Nacris shifted in her seat. Sweat broke out on her face. She could not miss the final destruction of Yala-tene! She had to be there for the kill. Her Jade Men would carry her litter anywhere she ordered, but, jealous of their success in slaying the Arkuden, Zannian had left them out of the attack. They languished in the river camp, guarding the raiders’ slaves.

Ungrah watched impassively as flames licked up the steep walls of Yala-tene. When he judged the flames were at their height, he raised his shield and joined in the cacophony. His thunderously deep voice broke through the uproar as he commanded his warriors in their ancient tongue. The drumming ogres finished with a flourish and joined their comrades.

“Now we go,” he said to Nacris.

Striding through the dust and smoke drifting back from Yala-tene, the ogres appeared even bigger than they were. Even Zannian’s hardened fighters edged their horses back, leaving a wide path for their savage allies.

Unable to bear being left behind, Nacris struggled to her feet and braced herself on her crude crutch. She would see the final fight, she vowed, even if she had to crawl all the way to the battlefield.

She hobbled after the ogres.

Crouching behind the parapets upwind of the burning brush, Lyopi and forty-odd villagers could hear a distant, regular booming. It didn’t get louder or closer, and after a while they dismissed it as another of Zannian’s ruses.

Smoke from the fires obscured much of the open ground between the village and the river. This made Hekani more uncomfortable than the fire itself. He sent runners down to the street to circle behind the baffle and warn the defenders on the other side to be wary of any raiders who might emerge from the smoky cover.

“What’s happening, Lyopi?”

Those behind the parapets looked up to see a small knot of elders coming up the ramp from the street below. Montu was there, along with Adjat the potter and the mason Shenk. With them was another person in a hooded cloak.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lyopi told them. “It’s too dangerous.”

Adjat spoke again. “We heard drums. We came to see what’s going on.”

Hekani said, “I think they mean to storm the ba—”

“Hai! Hai! Look!” Cries echoed along the parapet. Hekani, Lyopi, and the rest strained to see what the shouting was about.

Advancing through the smoke were many large figures, far taller than any human. At first, Hekani thought they were masked raiders on horseback, but when they cleared the smoke he saw they were walking on their own two legs. His mouth fell open in shock, and he turned wide eyes on Lyopi. Her face was pale as snow. The elders crowded around trying to see.

“What is it?” asked the cloaked man. “What do you see?”

“Ogres,” Lyopi gasped, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’s brought ogres to the valley.”

Ten of the jut-jawed monsters were in view, and more were emerging from the smoke. They arrayed themselves in an irregular line behind the tallest of their kind—evidently the leader. Catcalls and insults usually hurled at the raiders were absent, as those defending their homes simply stared in horrified disbelief.

“Twenty-four, twenty-five,” Hekani counted.

“We’re dead!” Adjat proclaimed. “We’re done for!”

“Shut up!” Lyopi snapped. “We did not bow down to them when they had a dragon fighting on their side. Why would we give up now?”

The villagers held a hasty council on the ramp. Every able-bodied person—young, old, male, and female—gathered in the street behind the closed western baffle. A barricade of timbers and scrounged stones would be thrown up inside the wall, closing both blocked entrances. If the ogres managed to gain the low wall atop the baffle, they would face a fresh barrier beyond.

The largest and strongest men in Yala-tene were rounded up and armed with the heaviest weapons available: stone hammers, axes, and stout, wooden clubs. The last pots of burltop oil in the village were assembled in the street north of the baffle, and Hekani called for fishermen’s nets. Puzzled but obedient, gangs of boys dragged the nets out of storage and passed them to the defenders on the walls.

The word from the lookouts was that there were thirty ogres.

“Only thirty?” Lyopi tried to make a joke.

From a hundred paces away, the ogres raised their weapons high and shouted, “Ungrah-de! Ungrah-de!”

They broke into a run, heading straight between the blazing piles of brush. A thick hail of stones and javelins fell on them, but they shrugged off the barrage and kept coming. Nearer the wall, heavier stones stunned a few ogres, but the rest came on like an avalanche.

“Get ready!” Hekani called down to the street behind the wall. The barricade was still taking shape.

“We’re not done yet!” Montu shouted. “You must hold them!”

Ungrah-de, as befitted a chief, reached the baffle first. He sprang up and used his axe to hook the top of the wall. Gripping the axe handle in both hands, he walked up the sloping stone barrier. A small boulder hit him at the base of the neck. His left hand lost its grip, but he hung on with the right. His followers leaped up beside him, one throwing a beefy arm around his chiefs waist. Thus supported, Ungrah took hold of his axe again and levered himself onto the baffle wall.

For a moment the villagers’ barrage dwindled as they beheld the terrible spectacle of armed ogres standing on their wall. Ungrah-de brandished his huge axe and urged his warriors onward. He jumped down from the baffle wall onto the heap of boulders Duranix had piled up to block the entrance. Skidding in the loose rubble, Ungrah clambered across the gap to the undefended stretch of wall bordered by fire. More ogres followed him. The fifth one to gain the top of the baffle arrived in time to receive the brunt of a renewed bombardment. Larger and larger missiles struck him. With a grunt, the ogre toppled backward, knocking down several of his comrades.

Whatever glee the villagers might have felt with this small victory was lost when Ungrah marshaled his four warriors and charged through the flames. By chance he chose to go to his left, away from Hekani, Lyopi, and the village elders.

With two sweeps of his broad stone axe, Ungrah cleaved aside the villagers in his path. Smelling victory, he bellowed for his warriors to follow.

The villagers gave ground, retreating along the wall until they came to the ramp leading down into the town.

There they stood, shoulder to shoulder, many openly trembling as the ogres advanced. They were joined by townsfolk carrying bundles of fishing net and pots of oil, hurrying up the ramp.

Ungrah waited for more ogres to join him. When his strength reached ten, he charged. The ogres came bellowing at the terrified villagers.

Up went the fishing net, held aloft on long poles. Ungrah had never seen a net before, but it didn’t look like any sort of barrier that could resist the stroke of his mighty axe.

They were almost in chopping range when the net fell forward, covering them. The ogres thrashed and hacked at the heavy cordage. While they were engaged, villagers upended two tall jugs of nut oil.

Ungrah slipped in the oil, and fell heavily on his back. A stone-headed spear buried itself in his right calf. He roared with anger and plucked the puny weapon out.

All around, his fighters were struggling with the fishing net and treacherous oil. The thick liquid lapped over the edges of the wall and ran down, leaving dark stains. Out on the plain, Zannian had advanced his horsemen to within a hundred paces of the wall. He watched the ogres’ charge, the ensuing melee, and the oil seeping over the stones.

“The walls are running with blood!” he declared. “What monsters those ogres are! They’re wallowing in the mud-toes’ blood!”

Then the liquid reached the burning fascines. Blue flames raced up the wall.

A few of the ogres had almost freed themselves from the net when it suddenly caught fire. Ungrah saw the danger and, ignoring heat and pain, chopped his way out. He stood erect, bathed in fire, and saw the humans dumping a fresh amphora of oil on the parapet.

“Back!” Ungrah roared at his troops in the ogre tongue. “Go back!” So saying, he leaped feet first to the ground. It was a long drop even for him; he hit hard, rolled, and took a few seconds to shake off an impact that would’ve killed a human. A torrent of rubbish fell on him—rocks, wood, mud bricks, and, most insulting of all, offal and dung.

Outraged, mighty Ungrah heaved himself to his feet and struck Yala-tene’s wall with his axe. A stone shard six hands long flew out, leaving a deep crevice in the block. It was a fell blow, and it also cracked the head of his axe.

Screaming from their burns, more ogres jumped off the wall, hair singed, skin blistered, and leather armor smoldering. The rest of the ogre force, still embroiled at the baffle, saw their leader’s jump from the wall and abandoned the fight.

Nacris had crossed the battlefield alone, leaning on her crutch. She saw the repulse of the ogres and felt curiously elated at their overthrow. Served them right for leaving her behind, she thought.

A horse cantered up behind her. She heard someone dismount, but before she could turn around, strong arms encircled her.

“Why are you out here?” Hoten asked. Her mate for less than a season, Hoten had grown more and more protective of Nacris as the siege dragged on, even as she felt less and less need of him.

“This is my fight. I had to see it! Why doesn’t Zan attack? Ungrah-de can’t carry the day alone!”

“The ogre chief insisted we stand back and witness the prowess of his warriors. Zan agreed, and now they’ve learned a lesson. The villagers are not fools, nor are they weaklings. But the battle isn’t done. While the ogres drew the enemy’s eyes to the west, Zan has sent half the band to storm the north entrance.”

She took his arm in a painful grip and her flint-colored eyes narrowed. “This is my battle, too, Hoten,” she hissed. “I won’t remain in camp like some doddering ancient.”

“I know, I know. Come with me. We’ll fight together.”

He lifted her to his horse’s back and mounted behind her. He laced a broad leather strap around both their waists, tying them together.

For the first time in many, many days, she smiled at him. “Don’t untie me until I’m dead,” she said, taking the reins.

Hoten closed his hands over hers. “Not even then,” he vowed.