Before Drakis’s shaft reached its target, he started jogging forward, his men taking their lead from him. “Halt!” He nocked the shaft he’d drawn.
“Fire!”
Another wave of arrows swept toward the gates’ defenders. More men went down, pierced by the heavy shafts powerful enough to knock a man off his feet at this distance. The screams of wounded men added to the confused shouting. By now Drakis had crossed more than half the distance to the gate. Again he halted, just out of the fire’s light. “Halt!” The dragging rasp of arrow against bow sounded loud to his ears as he drew back the shaft. “Fire!”
This time he aimed high, at the man shouting atop the tower. The shaft whistled up into the night, but he didn’t bother to see if he’d struck his target.
All those guards caught outside the towers died in the third flight of shafts, launched from less than forty paces.
The instant his shaft had flown, Drakis burst into a run, heading directly toward the left tower, gripping his bow in his left hand and drawing his short sword with the other. “Eskkar! Eskkar has returned!” Drakis shouted, letting the name no one had dared speak aloud echo around the walls. “Let none of the traitors escape!”
Angry and confused outcries came from the men atop the towers, and a shaft from above hissed past him. Now Drakis and his men showed clearly in the firelight, splitting into two groups as they charged toward the towers. They needed to get inside, before they became targets themselves.
Panic and confusion took control of the defenders at the sound of Drakis’s war cry. For nearly a week they’d lorded it over the city, laughing and taunting those who dared to speak Eskkar’s name. Now, accompanied by hissing arrows, that name struck fear into their hearts. Many forgot their orders, others abandoned their duties. A few broke and ran, disappearing into the darkness along the walls, escape the only thought in their heads.
Drakis kept shouting at the top of his lungs. “Eskkar has returned!
Death to all traitors!” His men took up the cry, screaming the words into the darkness as they raced to the leftmost tower, Drakis raising his sword as he ran. He hurtled over the dead bodies just as four men burst out of the tower’s entrance, swords in their hands.
But two of them saw what looked like a hundred demon shadows rushing at them, and darted back inside the tower. The others raised their swords, and one swung his blade at Drakis’s head. Drakis screamed his war cry even as he parried the thrust. Then he let his momentum carry him into the man’s chest, and he used his shoulder to knock the man to the ground, then thrust hard with his sword.
Wrenching his sword free, Drakis flung himself inside the tower’s dark opening. A shadow moved before him, and he struck at it, screaming “Eskkar! Eskkar!” The words rang up into the darkness. Here, deep within the tower’s base, almost no light penetrated. Normally a torch burned inside the doorway, to light the steps that led to the top. The careless guards had let it go out, too lazy to replace it with dawn approaching.
Drakis pushed forward; he needed to destroy the defenders as quickly as possible, before they could regroup, before they realized that they still outnumbered their attackers.
The guards inside the tower reacted slowly. They’d been caught relaxing, most of them asleep. Jolted awake, unsure of what was happening, the gatekeepers fumbled for their swords, trying to fend off what seemed like a horde of ferocious attackers. Some fled up the stone steps, bumping into those trying to come down.
Drakis reached the base of the steps, and saw a man coming at him, stumbling in the dark. Drakis had the advantage-anyone in front of him must be an enemy. He lunged upward, arm extended, and felt the sword bite deep into muscle.
His victim screamed as the blade pierced his thigh, and Drakis felt hot blood splatter his arm and chest. The stabbed man tried to step back, but the wounded leg failed him, and he pitched off the steps, crying out as he fell.
The other defenders stopped their descent, bunching up at the first landing. Drakis never hesitated, pushed on by his men sounding their war cries behind him. He hurled himself up the steps, toward the guards, still screaming Eskkar’s name, the confines of the tower amplifying his voice into something inhuman, something full of menace.
Another guard turned away, to scramble back up the steps, but lost his footing and fell to the stairs. Drakis swung his sword down viciously at the man’s back, ignored the scream as the blade cut deep into the man’s shoulder, knocking his opponent to the steps. The rest of the guards fled back the way they came, anything to get away from the demons charging at them. Drakis stepped on the wounded man’s back, and raced up the stairs two at a time.
Behind him, his men filled the tower with a wall of sound. An arrow launched by one of Drakis’s men hissed by, followed by a scream as another guard pitched off the steps, falling heavily to the ground below.
Drakis ignored it all, shouting his war cry and sprinting up the last stair-way until he reached the opening at the top of the stairs. Another guard met Drakis at the top of the stairs, a sword in his hand, but Drakis struck at him so quickly that the man didn’t even have time to attempt to parry the stroke. Knocking the wounded man aside, Drakis, breathing hard, pushed his way out of the darkness and onto the tower’s battlement. He saw shadows moving about and naked blades glinting in the starlight, as the tower’s defenders rallied their forces. “Eskkar has returned!” he shouted, and charged straight at his opponents.
24
Ariamus woke before dawn, a lifetime habit that had served him well, whether for fighting or fleeing. He’d gone to sleep late last night, once again in Korthac’s new residence. Ariamus would have preferred sleeping in his own house, the one he’d appropriated for himself. Nicar, the former ruler of Akkad, had lived there for more than ten years. Ariamus had enjoyed ordering him out. Now the wealthiest noble in the city and his entire family lived in a wretched one-room mud hut, and counted themselves lucky to have even that.
Unfortunately, Korthac wanted Ariamus close by, and Ariamus had swallowed his objections and accepted his leader’s “invitation” to take a room in the big house. In many ways it had turned out to be a good idea.
Ariamus had a half-dozen subcommanders who pestered him constantly with questions and petty problems. Having to pass by Korthac’s Egyptians, grim men who spoke little and fingered their sword hilts often, helped Ariamus avoid his men in the evenings.
He thanked all the gods he’d ever heard of that Korthac didn’t have a few dozen more Egyptians. Instead, Korthac needed Ariamus and the men he’d recruited. Not that Korthac trusted Ariamus or his men. Ariamus didn’t have much faith in them either. He had few enough experienced fighters, men who could do more than follow orders and swing a sword. In a few more days it wouldn’t matter. He’d be riding out into the countryside, recruiting more displaced and desperate men willing to do whatever he told them for a chance to eat and earn some silver. With enough followers, even inexperienced ones, they could hold the city indefinitely.
Dawn still hadn’t risen when Ariamus finished dressing and stepped out of his room, the one closest to the kitchen. To his surprise, he heard Korthac’s voice coming from the upper rooms. Climbing the stairs, he found the Egyptian seated at the big table, a lamp casting a soft glow around the big room. The ever-present guard stood a few steps behind his master, watching the inner room but keeping one eye on Ariamus as well.
“Did the slave deliver her child?”