But neither, he thought uneasily, have the Eisenlonders ever displayed any such arts of war. Until quite recently they had been best known for cattle raids, thievery, and avoiding pitched battle, their tactics—if you could call them that—consisting of lightning-swift strikes and surprise attacks. Yet there before him was evidence of a sophisticated kind of warfare unlike anything the barbarians had known or used in the past.
Kivik felt the hairs rise at the back of his neck. Not for the first time, he was aware of unknown forces and agendas at work, far beyond anything within his experience. “Say that the Eisenlonders taught the giants how to build these machines—but who taught them?”
To this Skerry had no reply, either busy with his own thoughts or else absorbed in watching the preparations down in the camp, where the Eisenlonders had taken over from the giants and were attaching ropes and a sling to each of the trebuchets.
Kivik’s mind went back to some of the more fantastic ideas they had mooted last night. It made no sense, he told himself, that the Dark Lady of Phaôrax should have gone to such lengths simply to capture or kill Winloki, when nothing could have been easier than sending emissaries to Lückenbörg months ago, years ago, to swoop down and abduct the girl.
Yet who else had the power or the will to stir up a war like this one, and yet take no visible part?
“Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe we have arrived at the right conclusion, only the wrong way around.
We know Ouriána has been expanding her territories for all these decades, but we never imagined she would ever be a threat to our lands, because the distance between us was so impossibly far, and most of all because she never sent her armies farther north than Rheithûn.”
The ideas were coming swiftly. It astonished Kivik how clearly he saw things now—how wretchedly blind he and others around him had been before. “All this time we believed ourselves safe, were certain she would be satisfied gobbling up the old Empire lands, and that once she had done so, her hunger for conquest would be sated. But why did we think so?”
He answered his own question. “Because it was comfortable, because it was convenient. Yet if her armies had ever ventured into Arkenfell, or even into Weye, we would have recognized our danger readily enough! Then, at the very least we would have made firm alliances with Mistlewald and Arkenfell, perhaps with her enemies on Thäerie and Leal. But if she strikes at us now, using the Eisenlonders as her puppets, if she strikes now while the kingdoms of the north are fragmented, disorganized, not even capable of recognizing our true enemy—”
Kivik drew in a long breath and let it out. As things stood now, Ouriána might swallow all the kingdoms of the north at a gulp and be in a position to attack the coastal principalities of Hythe and Weye from the north and south at the same time.
As if it were a sign, the sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds, casting a deep shadow over all the valley.
By late morning the air quivered with tension. Knowing that the first assault would begin very soon, the defenders assembled in force up on the ramparts. Their helms and shield-bosses gleamed with a cold light; their swords and spears gave back a deadly glitter. On the valley floor the enemy stood ready, rank upon rank, and a murmur rose up from the horde, like the sound of the sea.
Kivik passed among his men, speaking such heartening words as were customary before a battle. Behind a feigned cheerfulness, a reckless air of courage, he managed to conceal his own misgivings. And the men responded: backs were a little straighter and heads rose a little higher wherever he went.
Down by the trebuchets, the giants had harnessed the largest of the Varjolükka to the dangling ropes, and the purpose behind all the digging on the slopes was no longer a mystery. The Eisenlonders had been mining stones, stacking up great piles of rocks and boulders by the siege engines, ready for use.
At a signal from the man on the white horse, giants by each of the machines took up several large stones and dropped them into the slings. One by one, the loaders aimed and roared out their orders, bear-men rose up on their hindquarters and heaved on the ropes, and the wooden arms swung, slinging the first deadly missiles high into the air, speeding toward the fortress. Up on the walls, men scattered before the deadly barrage of falling stones.
Under the covering fire of the trebuchets and a rain of arrows from the Eisenlonder archers, other giants began to haul the long siege ladders forward. With the use of long forked poles, they pushed the ladders upright, angling them against the walls until they were lodged so firmly between the battlements that the defenders were unable to shake them loose.
As the giants drew back again, a lone trumpet sounded; a great noise went up from the barbarian host.
Then the front ranks swept toward the foot of the wall and began swarming up the ladders. The battle had truly begun.
At the beginning, the men of Skyrra were able to cast down most of the ascending Eisenlonders as swiftly as they climbed up. But the numbers of the enemy were just too great. Before very long they had forced a way from the ladders to the parapet, from the parapet to the wall-walk, pressing the defenders hard.
Again and again, Kivik flung himself into the middle of the conflict. No prince of Skyrra had ever hung back during an engagement. In truth, when the battle fury gripped him, it would have been impossible for him to hold still. He moved from one point to another, wherever the fighting was most heated, shouting out encouragement to his men, slaying every Eisenlonder who came in his way.
In the noise and confusion of battle, his heartbeat accelerated, while everyone around him seemed to slow. He no longer felt the cold. Sweat dripped down from his forehead into his eyes and he dashed it away with a thoughtless gesture. When one shield shattered, he snatched up another and kept on fighting without a pause.
Through the corner of one eye, he could see Skerry fighting along beside him. His cousin’s style was altogether different, each stroke aimed methodically, precisely, so that his opponents fell back steadily. A hail of arrows came pattering down, glancing off the stones, and Skerry ignored them. A sword flashed and he swung up his own, hardly breaking a sweat. When a barbarian lunged in his direction, Skerry capably finished the man off.
Kivik adjusted his grip, which had grown slippery with somebody’s blood, then took a mighty swing at a convenient head. The barbarian flung up his sword to block, and the blades locked. Kivik pushed with all his might, forcing the man to take two steps backward; then, as the swords disengaged, he aimed a swift downward cut to the knee. Somehow the blow landed higher than he intended and was absorbed by the skirt of a chain mail tunic.
Kivik ground his teeth. There had been a time—when he was young, very young—when he had firmly believed that a man fought only for honor and glory, that winning a battle was less important than how it was conducted. All this had changed: he fought now for the survival of his people and had no time for the conventions of combat. Ruthlessly, and with a lethal absence of compunction, he took every advantage he could. So when the barbarian swung, Kivik ducked, blocked with his shield, and moved in closer.
Pursuing his advantage, he heaved up his sword and drove the pommel down, with all of his strength behind it, on his enemy’s helm.
Momentarily stunned, the Eisenlonder stood immobilized. Seizing the moment, the Prince planted his heater shield against the other’s buckler and pushed, sending the man backward over the inside parapet wall and hurtling ninety feet to the yard below. Kivik did not even stop to watch him fall.