"Fall back!" Amara shouted, and the holders began to withdraw, harried by the airborne Knights, toward the stables. The Knights gathered together for a charge, their intention evidently to take the courtyard and hold it, and rushed at the retreating archers in a swift and deadly dive. Amara hurled Cirrus at the opposing furies, and though she was able to do little more than disrupt the formation of the Knights Aeris, they broke off the charge, swooping back up into the sky above the fortress, enabling the archers to retreat into the carrion-stink of the stables.
Amara herself turned and pelted toward the legionares stationed outside the gate. She caught a glimpse of the Knight Commander standing beside the makeshift wooden barricade. The Marat had managed to find two or three ways to crawl through it, and Pirellus danced from one spot to the next, his blade, and the spears of the two men backing him up, keeping the Marat at bay. "Pirellus!" she shouted. "Pirellus!"
"A moment, Lady," he called, and whipped his sword out in a blinding thrust. The Marat who received it died without so much as a struggle, simply
collapsing in the gap among the various wooden objects Pirellus took a pair of steps back and nodded to the spearmen and to a few of the other le-gionares standing by The men moved forward to hold the barricade, and Pirellus turned to Amara "I heard you calling The mercenaries attacked?"
"Two of their litters went down outside the walls," she said, and pointed, "But a third landed on the roof of that barracks "
Pirellus nodded once "Very well Stay here and-Countess!" The black blade swept out and something shattered with a brittle sound Amara, who had begun to turn, felt splinters of wood flickering against her cheek, and the broken fletchmg of an arrow rebounded from her mail She lifted her eyes to the barracks and saw Fidelias there, calmly drawing another arrow to his stout, short bow and taking aim, even as behind him, several men began to clamber down from the roof The former Cursor's thin hair blew in the cold wind, and though he stood in the shadow of the newly risen walls, Amara could see his eyes on hers, calm and cool, even as he drew back the second shaft, aimed, and loosed
Pirellus stepped in the way of the shot, cutting it from the air with a contemptuous slap of his blade, and called to the men behind him Fidelias's soldiers were joined by the Knights Aeris who circled back above the fortress and then dove toward the gates
Pirellus dragged Amara back to the stables and growled, "Stay down " Even as he did, Amara could see the legionares form into a ragged rank that met the oncoming troops and the Knights above with an uncertain tenacity Fidelias, on the barracks roof, climbed down to the ground, his eyes flickering over the hay scattered there He knelt into it There came a blurring in the air, and then he simply vanished, covered by a woodcraftmg of his own
"There!" Amara cried, grabbing at Pirellus's arm "The one who shot me! He's covered with a woodcraftmg and headed for the gates " She pointed at a flickering over at one side of the courtyard, hardly visible behind the struggling legionares with their backs to the gate
"I see him," Pirellus replied He glanced down at Amara and said, "The Steadholder exhausted himself with that woodcrafting Good luck " Then he rose and stalked out into din and whirl and scream of the fight in the courtyard
Amara looked behind her to find Bernard sitting where she had left him, his eyes open but not focused, his chest heaving with labored breaths She
went to his side and took her canteen from her belt, pressing it against his hands. "Here, Bernard. Drink."
He obeyed, numbly, and she remained beside him, turning to watch the fight. The legionares were having a hard time of it. Even as she watched, a giant of a swordsman, Aldrick ex Gladius, closed in on the shieldwall, swept one blade aside, danced past another, and killed a man in the center of the line with a sweeping cut that sheered through his helmet and skull, dropping him to the ground on immediately senseless legs. Without pausing, he engaged the two men on either side of the first. One of the men moved quickly and got away with no more than a crippling thrust to his biceps. The other lifted his shield too high in a parry, and Aldrick spun, sweeping his leg off at the knee. The man screamed and toppled, and the mercenaries surged forward hard against the shields.
Pirellus appeared among the Legion ranks, his black blade flickering. One of the Knights Aeris, his dive too low, clutched at his belly with a sudden scream, and tumbled to the courtyard. One of the mercenaries on the ground, wielding a forty-pound maul in one hand as though it weighed no more than a willow switch, swung his huge weapon at Pirellus. The Knight commander slipped to one side with a deceptively lazy motion, and his return blow struck off the man's hand at the wrist. The maul fell heavily to the ground. A third mercenary darted his blade at Pirellus, only to be parried and almost casually disarmed, the sword tumbling end over end to rattle against the wall of the stable not far from Amara.
"Fall back to the gate!" came Aldrick's bellow. "Fall back!" The mercenaries retreated, quickly, dragging their wounded with them, but a similar shout from Pirellus caused the Legion troops to halt their advance as well. Neither Aldrick nor Pirellus retreated, leaving the two men standing a pair of long steps apart.
Pirellus extended his blade toward Aldrick and then swept it up before his face in a gliding salute, which Aldrick mirrored. Then the two men dropped into a relaxed on guard position.
"Aldrick ex Gladius," Pirellus said. "I've heard about you. The Crown has a pretty bounty on your head."
"I'll be sure to check the wanted posters next time I go through a town," Aldrick responded. "Do you want to settle this, or do you need me to go through another few dozen of your legionares?"
"My name is Pirellus of the Black Blade," Pirellus said. "And I'm the man who will end your career."
Aldrick shrugged. "Never heard of you, kid. You're not Araris."
Pirellus scowled and moved, a sudden liquid blur of muscle and steel. Aldrick parried the Parcian's first thrust in a sudden shower of silver sparks, countered with one of his own that proved to be a feint, and whirled in circle, blade lashing out. Pirellus ducked under it, though the blow struck sparks from his helmet and clove away part of its crest, to lie glowing and smoldering on the straw-strewn ground.
The two men faced one another again, and Pirellus smiled. "Fast for an old man," he said. "But you missed."
Aldrick said nothing. A heartbeat later, a slow trickle of blood dribbled down from beneath the rim of Pirellus's helmet, and toward his eye.
The swordsman must have driven the helmet's rim into the cut Pirellus had taken earlier, Amara reasoned, opening it again.
Now Aldrick smiled. Pirellus's face had gone sallow beneath his brown skin. He lifted his lips at Aldrick and came forward, sword lashing out in swift blows, high, low, high again. Aldrick parried him in showers of silver sparks. The swordsman shifted onto the offensive himself, blade sweeping in short, hard cuts at the smaller warrior. Pirellus's black blade intercepted each blow, sparks of a purple so dark as to hardly be visible exploding at each point of impact. The blows drove the Parcian back a number of steps, and Aldrick pressed forward ruthlessly.
As Amara watched, Pirellus almost took down the swordsman. He slipped beneath a cut, slammed the swordsman's arm aside with his open hand, and drove his blade at Aldrick's belly. Aldrick twisted aside, and the Parcian's blade struck more dark sparks from Aldrick's armor, cutting through it like paper. The thrust missed, though it drew blood in a long scarlet line across Aldrick's belly. Aldrick recovered, parrying another thrust, and another, while Pirellus followed him up with determined strokes.