He glanced at the Pantheon, his mouth twisting. If only he’d taken the Micerarn, rather than leaving it for Beldyn. He wasn’t sure what difference the crown would have made, but still, anything would be better than standing here, waiting for death.
Uso dolit, his men had said, when their fellows deserted. The god will provide. Tavarre laughed bitterly at their blind faith, gripping his sword as the ladders rose again. “Well,” he muttered, “the god had better damn well hurry up.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The crash of the Scatas’ ram against Govinna’s gates boomed across the city, shaking the steps under Cathan’s feet as he wound his way up the Patriarch’s Tower. Lurching sideways, he threw out his sword arm to anchor himself against the wall. When he had his balance back, he muttered a curse. Beldyn continued to climb before him, untroubled by the trembling ground. He was already disappearing around the stair’s next bend. Grunting, Cathan dashed after him. They were nearly at the top now.
Beldyn paused when they reached the landing leading to the Little Emperor’s chambers, his gaze fixed on the door. The bodies were long gone from the study beyond, as was the blood that had spattered the floor, but the smell of death still lingered, like the after-scent of smoke in a burnt-out ruin. Beldyn put a hand to his brow, then ran it down his face with a shuddering sigh. Cathan said nothing, his own thoughts dark. He looked down at the Miceram, cradled in the crook of his left arm. He’d tried to get Beldyn to put it on, but the monk had declined.
“Not here,” he’d said.
“Where, then?” Cathan had asked.
Beldyn had smiled. “Follow,” was his only reply. And so here they were, leaving the study behind and moving ever upward, toward the tower’s crenellated roof.
The boom of the ram shook the city again as they emerged into open air once more. Cathan stumbled to one knee, nearly dropping the crown as he saved himself from sprawling into the balustrade, then rose beside the monk. The night wind whirled about them, whipping at Beldyn’s robes and making his long hair whirl as he looked south across the city. In the Miceram’s metallic glow, his face seemed made of burnished gold, and his eyes flashed as he beheld the battlefield below.
Cathan had seen the Kingpriest’s army before, on the highroad south of LucieL, but the sea of torch flames and star-flashing armor beyond Govinna’s walls awed him. The enemy seemed to go on forever, particularly compared with the thin line of defenders atop the wall. The siege ladders rose and fell, and the ram rumbled back from the gates. The huge fist on its end shone with fireglow as it pulled away, paused, then rushed forward again, its impact loud enough to rattle windows and send shingles sliding off of roofs all over Govinna. Still the gates did not give, and the ram hauled back yet again.
Swallowing, he turned to Beldyn, raising the crown. “Will you please put this on now?”
The monk met his gaze, smiling. His eyes were stranger than usual, silver sparks dancing across their surfaces like bugs on water. “Not yet,” he said, shaking his head. “There is still something I must do.”
Bowing his head, he clasped his sacred medallion, squeezing it until his fingers turned white. His lips moved silently, forming words Cathan didn’t recognize. When he opened his eyes again, the air around him had already begun to sparkle with silver light. His mouth a hard line, he flung his free hand outward, toward the walls.
Cathan gasped. He knew the gesture. He’d seen it before. In his mind, he was at the Bridge of Myrmidons, watching as the Scatas slew Sir Gareth and his men. Beldyn had performed the same ritual then. Now the air about him sang with phantom chimes.
“No,” Cathan breathed, his eyes wide. “Are you going to-”
He never finished the question. At that moment, Beldyn’s eyes flared with holy light, and his voice rang out, pure and musical, as he focused his will upon Govinna’s fabled, uncon-quered gates.
“Pridud!” he bellowed.
Break!
Tavarre leaned on his fork, added his weight to that of the three other men who strove to push the ladder down from the wall. Despite their efforts, though, the ladder refused to budge. The Kingpriest’s soldiers had managed to plant it firmly in the body-strewn earth below, and it simply would not move. It shook slightly as the Scatas started up it.
Glancing to either side, Tavarre saw a half-dozen other ladders standing firm against the best efforts of Govinna’s defenders. He spat a vile oath. After six failed assaults, the Scatas would hold back no longer. His forces were crumbling around him, dashing what last, frail hopes he held.
Disgusted, he gave the fork one last, useless shove, then fell back. When the first soldier appeared at the top of the ladder, he lunged, thrusting the weapon home. The Scata let out a ghastly shriek as the fork punched through his plumed helm, then toppled backward. Blood sprayed in an arc from his face as he tumbled out of sight. He took the fork with him, wrenching it from the baron’s hands and bearing it with him to his doom.
Furious, Tavarre stumbled back, yanking his sword from its scabbard with a noisy ring. The red rage of battle flashed before his eyes.
The second soldier up the ladder died as well, and the third, each impaled on the weapons of Tavarre’s men. The fourth was ready, however, and managed to duck a clumsy thrust, grabbing his attacker’s fork and yanking it forward, dragging its wielder with it. The man, a youth in the colors of Govinna’s guardsmen, stumbled forward and caught the soldier’s sword through his stomach. Glaring from behind his helm, the Scata climbed up onto the battlements, swinging his bloody blade to clear a space for his fellows.
Moments later, that fourth soldier was writhing on the catwalk, laid open from breast to groin by Tavarre’s own blade, but the damage was done: dozens of the Scatas were up, clambering over the merlons to take his place. Swords dancing, they pushed outward, cutting down the city’s defenders with deadly precision. The borderfolk fought valiantly, but the trained soldiers outmatched them in blade-on-blade battle. Quickly, they gave ground.
Tavarre roared, laying about with his sword. He shouted curses as he rained down blow after blow, driving the blade through one soldier’s chest, then turning to hack into another man’s knee. The soldier cried out, stumbling, and the baron’s blade opened his throat. Blood splashed the stones.
Another Scata pushed forward, lashing out and getting past Tavarre’s hurried parry. He flinched away, but a hot pain shot across his cheek. Another scar, to join those he’d already earned. Laughing carelessly, he slapped the soldier’s sword away with his own, then grabbed the collar of the man’s cloak and spun, hurling the man off the wall. The Scata screamed all the way down to the cobbled street below.
Rage wasn’t enough, though. Even as Tavarre fought, his men died around him, the one to his left clutching at sickly bulges trying to escape his slashed stomach, the one to his right with his hands covering a face soaked in blood. So it went: Govinna’s defenders melted away, while more and more Scatas gained the top of the wall.
Tavarre roared with incoherent fury. It was over. He’d lost.
“Palado” he prayed, splitting a Scata’s helm, “mas pirhtas calsud. Adolas brigim paripud…”