James Barclay - Beyond the Mists of Katura

‘I tell you something else: if I ever see Calaius again, I will deny I was ever here. And should I ever decide to board ship to this barren, stinking country again, you have my permission to kill me.’

Auum felt so confused. In the rainforest it was all so clear, yet here where you could see everything laid out, it was all obscured. He put his face in his hands.

‘If we break the siege, what then? I can’t agree to fight alongside Xetesk.’

‘Stein says it’s our best chance of success.’

‘I know the numbers, but in my soul it feels wrong. The Wytch Lords were spawned from the type of mage that now inhabits Xetesk, weren’t they?’

‘That was hundreds of years ago. In the lifetimes of men that’s an eternity,’ said Ulysan.

‘Then why do I feel we are being dragged in the wrong direction? I don’t like not knowing what’s ahead.’

‘I think we have to trust Stein and Kerela and the other Julatsans.’

‘Why?’ Auum rubbed at his left arm. ‘Stein maybe but the rest. . well. . You know what I think.’

‘Let’s take this a day at a time,’ said Ulysan. ‘We’re nowhere if we can’t break the Wesmen here.’

Auum felt a fractional release of tension.

‘Any ideas on that front? We have to think of something different.’

‘Just one,’ said Ulysan. ‘Think about it the other way to today’s battles. We need to get our mages and Il-Aryn close enough to threaten the shamen, because we know we can take the fighters. The question is, whose casters have the greater range?’

The door to the antechamber opened. A soldier, out of breath and red in the face, came in.

‘My Lord Auum, General Harild wants you on the walls at the main gates,’ he said in stilted but passable elvish.

‘I am no lord,’ said Auum, smiling at the young human.

‘Why didn’t he get a mage to relay a message?’ asked Ulysan.

The soldier blushed scarlet. ‘I asked to come. I wanted to meet you, speak to you in your language.’

Auum felt an unexpected rush of warmth and took the soldier’s hand, shaking it as was the human custom before kissing his forehead.

‘Well done, although I can’t imagine why you should want to meet me.’

If it was possible, the soldier’s red cheeks reddened further. ‘You are Auum. Your freeing of Calaius is famous. And I saw you fight out there. Can I learn to be that fast?’

Auum laughed and stepped back. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Tilman,’ he said. ‘My family’s mostly farmers.’

‘Well, Tilman, your elvish is impressive and you can improve upon it until your dying day. But our speed is given to us by Yniss and no human will ever be so blessed. I admire your ambition, though.’ Auum winked at Ulysan. ‘That’s two humans I like now.’

‘What’s going on out there?’ asked Ulysan. ‘Why are we needed on the walls?’

‘The Wesmen are gathering. It’s a change of plan for them. They have brought, um. . I don’t know the word. . to climb the walls.’

‘Ladders?’ said Auum. ‘Good. That spares me a few awkward decisions, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose,’ said Ulysan. ‘But unless they’ve chosen to sacrifice themselves in an ocean of mage fire, they must have thought of some way to protect their warriors during the assault.’

‘Well, there’s only one way to find out. Lead on, Tilman. I want to know more about you before the spells start to fly.’

A network of mages linked by a Communion casting was positioned all around Julatsa’s walls to warn of forces approaching from any direction. Down in the city the emergency plan had been put into operation, taking vulnerable members of the population inside the college grounds, organising fire and stretcher teams and setting up ambushes at key points in the tight streets.

Harild’s college army and the militia were on the walls or behind the gates. Hundreds of bows and thousands of arrows were ready, as they had been every day of the siege. The cavalry were on standby to charge the gates should they be breached or to hasten a rout should the Wesmen be beaten back.

Auum had split the remaining thirty-one TaiGethen cells between three points along the walls to match the concentrations of Wesmen warriors mustering on the open ground below. The Il-Aryn and college mages were in casting groups spread along the walls and around thirty of them stood behind the gates ready to launch orbs.

Auum stood in the gatehouse with Harild, Stein and Ulysan. His left arm ached terribly but at least he could use it to balance himself, if not to hold a weapon or close his fist to punch. It would have to do. He stared at the gathering enemy forces and shook his head.

‘Unless they’ve got a new trick, I can’t see any way they’ll avoid a slaughter on the approach. How do they even propose to get a single foothold on the walls?’

The warriors were singing and chanting. Auum had counted sixty wooden ladders, all wide enough to allow three abreast. A large proportion of the Wesmen carried hide shields and those who didn’t had bows. Spread among them were the shamen no longer in large groups but in ones, twos and threes. They were a powerful force but were about to attack into a storm of human magic.

‘The shamen must be planning something,’ said Ulysan. ‘Have you seen them spread out like this before?’

‘No,’ said Harild.

‘It makes them more difficult to target.’

‘But they have to be our focus,’ said Harild. ‘Without the shamen, the Wesmen are totally exposed.’

‘And there’s really nothing elsewhere around the walls?’ asked Auum.

‘No. It’s so empty I was thinking of sending the cavalry out through the rear gates.’

Auum nodded. ‘And why did you decide against it?’

‘Because there’s too much open ground to east or west coming around the walls and into view. Too much time for the shamen to target them. We’re better keeping them here as a shock force or perhaps as a diversion.’

‘Agreed,’ said Auum.

He stared at the enemy again. The chanting beyond the gates ceased. Four thousand and more Wesmen faced the city in silence, their shamen moving among them, laying hands on them, muttering prayers and invoking their spirits for victory. The silence was unnerving. Auum could feel the tension rise inside the city. Everyone knew the time had come.

‘Keep your heads down when you see the shamen preparing,’ said Harild, his voice booming out. ‘Get the message along the walls. Get the spotters up in the sky. Make this day glorious.’

‘No parley flag,’ said Ulysan.

‘They don’t want us to surrender; they want us dead,’ said Auum. ‘Stay on my left. I’m weak there.’

‘I shall be like glue,’ said Ulysan.

‘Perhaps not quite that close,’ said Auum.

The Wesmen howled like wild dogs and rushed across the open space of a hundred yards and more, scattering into ladder teams flanked by archers. Shields were held out against the inevitable rain of spells and arrows. The shamen ran among the warriors.

‘Archers. Loose at will!’ roared Harild.

Arrows whipped away but not enough, not nearly enough. Auum looked along the walls. He could see shock on the faces of mages, Il-Aryn and bowmen alike. Only the TaiGethen displayed no fear.

‘Stein,’ said Auum, ‘get among your people to the right. They’re waiting too long. I’ll do the same left. Come on, Ulysan.’

Auum ran from the gatehouse, jumped down the steps to the ramparts, where Ollem was waiting for him, and sprinted along behind the nervous defenders. He heard another order from Harild. There was a brief pressure of human magical power across his shoulders before a volley of bright yellow orbs of fire soared out from behind the gates, trailing smoke and plunging into the ground just in front of the foremost Wesmen.