Finally Markus had fewer than a hundred men left, huddled together on several sections of the outer parapet. They formed two lines, facing west and east, blocking the ramparts on top of the walls as the attackers swarmed into them. For a few moments, the Solamnics stood, steel clashing against the attackers, killing two or three of the black soldiers for every one of their own casualties.
Markus looked to the sky, which was paling with dawn. The flying soldiers had disappeared. Knowing they must have used magic to take to the air, he realized the foul enchantment had worn off, that the enemy was once again grounded, like his own men.
“Fall back to the south gatehouse!” he ordered. “We make our stand there.”
The men retreated with the discipline one would expect of Solamnic Knights. There was no panic, not even when a new rush of the black attackers surged through a side door and took the skirmish line in the right flank. Two or three men fell, but the rest wheeled back toward the great metal door that led to the massive gatehouse.
But then the doors to that gatehouse burst open, disgorging a fresh company of the enemy, three hundred strong or more emerging to form a phalanx. The defenders were trapped in a vise. Enemy archers began to open up on them from higher platforms, and it broke Markus’s heart to see brave men fall without even being able to strike a blow at their distant attackers.
It was not far from this place, General Markus remembered grimly, that Sturm Brightblade had died. The Blue Lady, Kitiara, had killed him here, and in that courageous moment the Orders of the Solamnic Knights had sprung back to life. The Oath and the Measure had been redeemed, the honor of Vinas Solamnus restored.
“Hold, there!” he called as two more knights fell. A young apprentice, not yet bearded, rushed into the breach, hewing and hacking at the black-clad attackers, and the new line held-for a moment, until the lad was felled by an arrow plunging from high above.
Markus was down to only a dozen men, and they were beset by hundreds of attackers on all sides. His bloody sword was a heavy weight in his hand, but that was nothing compared to the burden dragging down his heart.
Another knight fell, so close to him that his blood spilled across Markus’s boots. The general tried to step forward and avenge the man, but the killer backed away from him, and five or six of the attackers rushed in to take his place.
Markus never saw the one who killed him, the keen blade lancing in from the left, stabbing under his rib cage, driving up to pierce his great heart.
“Est Sularus oth Mithas,” he groaned. My honor is my life.
And on that day, it was his death as well.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The latest reports still have Ankhar closing in on Solanthus,” reported Captain Franz. The Crown officer sat astride his lathered charger. The young man’s face was lined with sweat, caked with dust. But he had ridden up to the emperor and his staff at a gallop, and his voice displayed only calm assurance, no fear.
The leader of the White Riders had been out on patrol for more than a week and had just located the marching column of the Palanthian Legion and his father’s Crown Army. Dismounting, Franz saluted his father, General Dayr, and turned to address Jaymes. “But I have to tell you, Excellency, that those reports are four days old. My outriders have not been able to penetrate the screen of warg cavalry, so we don’t have concrete information on the whereabouts of his main body.”
“Well, let’s start with some facts,” Jaymes said, thinking aloud. He had maps in his saddlebags and a whole library of them in one of the command wagons, but his memory had etched every detail of those plains into his mind; he didn’t need to consult any documents to lay out the situation on the plains.
“He hasn’t come within fifty miles of the city-that much we know.”
“Correct, my lord,” the knight captain reported. His gaze was steady on the emperor, and he spoke levelly, without emotion, though resentment simmered behind his eyes. “The screen of his riders extends that close to the city, but they haven’t pressed my outposts.”
Jaymes turned to another nobleman, a high lord of Solanthus who had joined his force the previous day. Lord Martin had been a stalwart commander in the city’s defense, and he had led a brave company during the Battle of the Foothills. The emperor couldn’t help but think Martin merely looked old and tired. His hair had thinned, and what remained of it had turned white. His pale blue eyes were watery and didn’t seem to focus clearly.
But Lord Martin had always been a reliable man, and he was his best bet there and then. Jaymes spoke bluntly.
“Your garrison is at full strength. Would it help to send a few regiments of infantry to reinforce?”
“I don’t think so, Excellency,” Martin replied. His voice was as strong as ever, Jaymes was pleased to note. He recalled, too, Martin had lost a son in the battle that broke the siege. In the immediate aftermath, the nobleman had been fully engaged and his help was vital in winning the conclusive actions of the war. But afterward, surely the personal tragedy had taken its toll on him.
“We have enough to man the city walls with the complement of troops already in Solanthus,” the lord reported. “And those walls are as high and as strong as ever. The breach at the Westgate has been fully repaired-in fact, the gate is taller and thicker than it was before Ankhar’s monster smashed it down. There’s plenty of food in the granaries. Even so, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by bringing more hungry mouths behind the walls.”
“I agree,” Jaymes said. He glanced at Franz again and was startled to see the naked hostility there. The emperor’s eyes narrowed. “Captain?” he said curtly.
“Yes, Excellency?” A mask fell across the young officer’s face. But Jaymes made a note to remember his hidden feelings.
“Is there any chance Ankhar has moved farther east, into Throtl, or the Gap?”
“No, Excellency. I’ve sent three platoons of lancers all the way to the northern edge of the Darkwoods, and there has been no sign of anything that way.”
“So he’s back there somewhere, behind Solanthus?” General Dayr speculated. “I suggest we find him and attack, Excellency. We have the Crown Army here, with your legion, and the Sword Army gathered at Solanthus. United we’d have more than enough strength to collapse his pickets, and destroy him once and for all.”
“We could do that, if indeed he’s over there,” the emperor replied. “But I’m not ready to take the chance.”
“What chance?” Captain Franz blurted out, his face flushing. He blinked in the face of Jaymes’s glare but didn’t back down. “We know where he isn’t, just like you said! So he has to be down there, east of the city.”
“No, there’s one more possibility,” the emperor replied. “What if he took his army into the mountains?”
“But why?” Franz objected. “He’d be trapped in some box canyon or dead-end valley. There’s no place an army could cross over the crest of the range!”
“Not an army of knights, perhaps,” Jaymes replied. The young man’s outburst forgotten, he spoke thoughtfully. “But Ankhar doesn’t march with wagons and war machines. He doesn’t even have horses. And he knows those mountains well-they’re his home, after all.”
“Do you think he’d go there now?” General Dayr asked. “Because if he did…”
“He could outflank us all and make for any part of the southern plains. He’d be far ahead of us and we couldn’t do a damned thing about it,” Jaymes concluded. “And the more I think about it, the more I’m certain he’s not anywhere on these plains at all.”
“If that’s true, what can we do about it?”
“I’ll leave the Sword Army near Solanthus for the time being; General Rankin can keep an eye on things around here. General Dayr, you will march eastward with the Crowns for thirty miles and set up a temporary camp. I want you to be ready to move in either direction at a moment’s notice.”