Kelewan, Erumvirine
I heard Captain Lumel enter the armory behind me, but I did not turn to face him. Instead I tightened the cords binding my armor on. There were only two things he could say to me. One, and I would have to kill him; the other and he would be the man I thought he was.
“So, you are abandoning us.”
“A statement, not a question; good.” I smiled, but didn’t let him see it. I concentrated on knotting the orange cords with a tiger’s-head knot. Despite my crest’s being a tiger hunting, I’d not used that knot in a long time-since before I became Moraven Tolo apparently, because my fingers fumbled at it. Still, I managed, working black cord in for the stripes and eyes. The knots made nice targets for archers with cord-cutting heads on their arrows, but so far the kwajiin had not employed them.
I turned, and he covered his surprise well. The armor I’d chosen had been last worn by a Morythian general who died at Bakken Rift, when the Bears had charged uphill and routed their enemies. The Tiger crest on the breastplate did not match mine, but the alternating black and orange cords, as well as the background stripes, suited me.
“You know I’m not abandoning the city. I told Prince Jekusmirwyn at the first that his city was lost. I never intended to stay.”
Captain Lumel wore the Jade Bears green-and-black armor well. He cut an imposing figure, and even a few cuts through the paint had not lessened his image. He’d defended against the enemy’s first forays, and had already become something of a legend within the city by challenging a kwajiin and defeating him in single combat. I’d watched the duel and felt the tingle of jaedun. If he survived the siege, Lumel would be a Mystic.
“It was assumed that you would stay because you did not flee with others as the kwajiin surrounded the city.”
“But that wasn’t an assumption you made.”
He smiled slightly, then shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t stay. Your first analysis was correct. The city is indefensible. Those who got out early are likely to be the only ones who survive. Why did you stay?”
“To see how they fight. I’ve engaged them in small bands, and the kwajiin have changed things. I wanted to see how they would handle a city.”
He slowly nodded. “It has been an education.”
“For both sides.”
The kwajiin methodology of warfare promised many new things, but some I found hauntingly familiar. The invaders came in from the southeast and did make one run at Bloodgate. The vhangxi attacked in strength, but it still felt like a probe to me. The grey-skinned horde poured onto the plain and came at the gate. Archers rained arrows down from the walls while the vhangxi leaped nearly to the parapets to attack them. They had no equipment to hammer the gates down, so the attack really had no chance of success.
The Jade Bears had been on the walls repulsing them, and Captain Lumel’s troops fought hard. Had they been less disciplined, it would have been possible for vhangxi to get into the city, though I doubt they had the presence of mind to open the gates to their fellows. In case that was their plan, my companions and I were poised to interfere, but our aid was not called for.
When Captain Lumel issued his challenge to one of the kwajiin, I don’t think either knew what they were getting into. The vhangxi attack had faltered, and the kwajiin had come forward to call them back. He slew two of the vhangxi when they sought to rebel, and a third drove at his back. It might have gotten to him, but it did not because Captain Lumel ordered archers to bring the beast down.
The kwajiin raised his sword in a salute and, in words no one but I seemed to understand, said his life was Lumel’s. Lumel then pointed to the circle with his own sword, and the two of them agreed to meet. I translated, because I wanted Lumel to know what was happening. He didn’t have to challenge the kwajiin, but once events started to unfold, the Virine warrior did not shrink from them.
The two warriors entered the circle-Lumel having emerged through a sally port at Bloodgate. They saluted each other, then began to fight. The kwajiin preferred Eagle, Tiger, and Wolf as fighting styles. They let him be on the attack at all times, and he pressed it. While I sensed no jaedun radiating from him, he possessed a native talent that exceeded that of many warriors-even those of superior training.
Virine to the core, Lumel remained patient. Mantis, Crane, and Dragon withstood the invader’s attacks. Lumel was skilled, and jaedun flashed as he avoided some cuts and parried others. Still, he benefited from the fact that he was a more recent student of the sword, and refinements in techniques made it easier for him to defend against the kwajiin’s more archaic forms.
But the kwajiin died because Lumel broke form. The invader had lunged while Lumel waited in Crane form three. The blade slid along the Virine’s breastplate, but scored nothing more than paint. Lumel kicked out with his right foot, aiming for the kwajiin’s right knee. The enemy warrior twisted so the kick missed to the left, but Lumel then hooked his foot back and drove his spur through the kwajiin’s right knee.
As the enemy went down, he tried to slash at Lumel, but the Virine grabbed his wrist. Lumel followed him down, then drove his knee into the kwajiin’s right biceps, shattering his arm with a sharp crack. He brought his sword’s hilt down into the blue-skinned warrior’s face, smashing teeth. Two more punches left the enemy dazed and bleeding, then Lumel stood and harvested his head with a single stroke.
He still wore the sword he’d taken from the kwajiin, but he had strapped it to his back, where it served as a challenge to others to take it from him.
Thus ended the only noble part of the siege. After that the kwajiin commanders brought more troops up and encircled the city. They even placed troops on the other side of the Green River in case any of the city’s residents decided to swim for freedom. Their encirclement complete, they sent parties to the nearby forests to gather wood for the creation of siege machinery.
While waiting for their towers to be completed, they launched other attacks. In the depths of the night they released their winged toads. Ranai had seen them before, and many people died that first night. Those who didn’t die actually created more of a problem, for the deep bite wounds festered. Moreover, the creatures’ vile saliva loosened bowels and soon the city was awash in night soil.
The winged toads came again the next night, but we were prepared for them. Fishing nets had been taken from the docks and strung through alleys and between towers. People armed themselves with broomsticks, candlesticks, short knives and long. They pounded and hacked at anything that flew. While there were injuries visited upon each other in the frenzy, the attacks devastated the winged toads and showed how ineffective they were against a prepared populace.
The second assault proved more dangerous. As with any city, Kelewan had a sewer system. Gates and grates guarded against any enemy soldiers infiltrating that way, but the kwajiin employed a different weapon. They released creatures with the sharp teeth and voracious appetites of the vhangxi, but most closely resembled small otters or large weasels. They swam into the sewers and up through pipes, crawling into cesspits beneath toilets. They were possessed of singular jumping capabilities.
They attacked when people-many suffering from the winged toad venom-were least on guard. To hear the commotion described could almost make it seem comical-a man runs screaming from a toilet, sporting a furred tail. The fact that the tail shrank as the creature gnawed its way up through his bowels, on the other hand, painted the horror in stark terms that converted buckets into toilets, and the Illustrated City suddenly found itself with brown splashes trailing from every window.
The dung-otters proved almost as easy to deal with as the winged toads, once we learned they preferred live prey to carrion. Their weakness was fire, so dumping oil in a puddle in a sewer formed the basis of a trap. We’d throw a hapless cur down there to whine in the darkness. When it started barking, then yelped in terror, we tossed a torch down and ignited the oil. While we didn’t study the results all that closely, we got a fair number of dung-otters for each dog, and the kwajiin ran out of dung-otters well before our supply of dogs evaporated.