Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“Tell the Master of the Wall to prepare to maintain bow fire to cover the evacuation of the people, and then the troops once the Sorbolds are in range. And find the commanders of the third and fourth divisions inside—tell them to watch for a charge from the west, and hold the north gate.”

The chamberlain nodded his understanding, then grasped the rope and was hauled over the rampart, out of the fray that was turning bloody beneath him.

Uristan was shouting orders to the commander of his personal retinue.

“Sweep as many of those people as you can around the wall to the north—there’s another gate there, and it’s out of sight.”

A shock rang through him as he was jolted from behind, rammed into by several people fleeing the fields in panic in the face of the coming horsemen. Tristan, a strong man with a solid frame, maintained his balance and stepped out of the way of another oncoming wave of villagers, their faces set in masks of terror, eyes glazed. In the distance near the wall he could hear Madeleine’s shrill voice shrieking his name.

—

“Set up two fronts,” he shouted to his commander. He pointed to the approaching column that was marching forward at the east to flank the festivalgoers. “Set up a picket of pikemen and foot soldiers, and any peasants you can find—give them anything, sticks, haybales, balehooks—and form a line in front of the crossbowmen to set against the infantry charge. Stephen’s cavalry can engage the horses riding the wall until they come within bowshot of those archers on the rampart.” The chaos swelled around him. He looked to find his cousin as the commander saluted and began calling orders.

At the wall Stephen was utilizing one of the rampart archers to pull some of the people gathering near the bulwark over the top to safety. Once the process was working the Duke of Navarne stepped back from the wall, shielded his eyes for a moment, and shouted something to the soldiers atop the rampart. One disappeared, returning a moment later with a handful of weapons, which he tossed clear of the wall.

Stephen scooped the blades from the snowy ground and began quickly passing them out to the men and women standing in wait. He trotted over to Tristan and tossed him a longsword.

“I guess we’ll see if Oelendra’s training stayed with us, cousin,” he said calmly, though his eyes gleamed. Tristan nodded, turning once more to the oncoming column.

With a thunderous roar a second wave of cavalrymen from Navarne’s northern barracks came into sight, joining with the tail end of the first wave from the eastern quarters. The two mounted lines galloped forth, charging to engage the Sorbold horsemen while Stephen’s foot soldiers hurried, amid a furious clanking of armor and clanging weapons, to interpose themselves between the oncoming infantry. Scattered huddles of men and women stood, armed with whatever they could scrounge and frozen in panic, watching the ebb and flow of the mob struggling to squeeze through the eastern gate, the last desperate line of defense between the townspeople and the wall.

“I’ll face the charge,” Tristan shouted to Stephen. “You rally the people—there are hundreds of able-bodied who can defend the wall.”

Stephen nodded and the two noblemen parted, Tristan running forward toward the oncoming column, Stephen toward the makeshift dais upon which he had been sitting only a few moments before.

“You!” the duke called to a clump of heavyset men, sledge-race participants most likely, hovering near the wall, axes and spades in hand, steeling themselves for the coming charge. “Seize those platforms! Throw a few obstacles in their way—set up some barricades!”

Like a spell shattering, the trance in which they had been rooted vanished. With a swell of shouting, the men took hold of the makeshift dais and splintered it apart, smashing the bracing boards with axes, barrels, bare fists, whatever was within reach. In moments the enormous platform was broken into sections of pallets, which the townsfolk hauled forward and planted at the wall’s edge and across the field, directly in the path of the line of thundering chargers riding the wall.

The randomly strewn pallets served as partial cover for the hailstorm of arrows and crossbow bolts slamming forth now from the Sorbold force. The air was rent with the screams of the missiles as they tore forward in waves. A sickening staccato of popping and thudding sounds erupted, followed by cries of agony or shuddering gasps as the bodies of the festivalgoers began to fall rapidly, littering the once-pristine racing field.

“Halt—hold your position!” Tristan shouted to the double line of foot soldiers from Stephen’s northern barracks, the pikes in front, the bowmen in back. “Train your crossbows on the front line and wait until they crest the field. Pikemen—keep down! Hold this line against the charge!” He looked away, his stomach turning at the looks on the faces of the conscripted peasants as realization took hold of what they were facing.

Stephen felt the wind grow colder; it stung his cheeks and eyes, kicking up a veil of sharp snowy crystals from the ground. He glanced in the direction of the two gates in his wall; the throng was still clamoring to move inside, but it was thinning as the soldiers Tristan had assigned to manage the crowd maintained a fragile order. Children were running in terror, following adults dashing blindly around the wall to the northern gate. The snow-devils in the wind spun around them, hurling some of them to the ground.

He turned and looked toward the oncoming army. Like a smoothly flowing river the Sorbold soldiers marched forward, relentlessly, unhurried. One catapult came to a halt in an unlikely place and began training on the scattered crowd of defenders manning the wall. Stephen’s brow furrowed, and then his throat closed in the realization that the enemy was not positioning to attack the keep, but rather to wreak as much death among the attendees as possible.

Behind him the wind grew sharper, more insistent. Stephen shielded his eyes and turned. The look of consternation on his face melted in astonishment.

Llauron the Invoker stood in the middle of the field that had been the sledge arena, atop the small rise of packed snow where the timekeeper had stood to start the races. He was alone in the distance except for Gavin, his chief forester, who was crouched on one knee, his heavy bow far out of range of the advancing army, positioned to defend Llauron, standing as his only guard.

The Invoker seemed unaware of the cacophony all around him. His expression was calm, almost serene, his arms at his sides, the white oaken staff of his office in one hand. Llauron’s eyes were closed, his face turned toward the late-afternoon sun, which would soon vanish into the long darkness of night.

Llauron raised his empty hand; Stephen looked above. The wind picked up strongly, shrieking with a moaning howl across the wide fields, whisking more sheets of frozen crystals into the swirling air. The duke closed his eyes against the blast of cold that stung his face as the wind slapped him hard.

He put his hand to his brow and looked to Tristan. The Lord Roland had not noticed the Invoker; he was instead struggling to stand and keep his soldiers trained on the approaching column.

The light of day surged, then diminished quickly. Dark clouds formed over the sun; suddenly, the hazy light of afternoon vanished into the gray of dusk as the snow began to fall rapidly stronger, coating the air thickly, rising and falling in twisting patterns on the moaning wind.

The Invoker raised his other hand, holding his staff high. The gold leaf atop the white wood gleamed like a beacon in the coming darkness. Stephen thought he could hear Llauron chanting an invocation, but the sound of it was lost in the keening music that screamed in his ears. He looked to Tristan again, who now stood erect, staring directly in front of him. Stephen ran to his cousin, pulling the front of the hood of his cape down to shield his eyes from the bite of the wind.