The siege towers and ramps rumbled forward as fast as men could drag them. The Guard did their best, but could destroy only a few. Whisper was in a dilemma. She had to choose between targets. She elected to concentrate on breaking turtles.
The towers came closer this time. The Rebel archers were able to reach our men. That meant our archers could reach them, and ours were better marksmen.
The enemy crossed the nearest ditch, encountering massed missile fire from both levels. Only when they reached the retaining wall did they break their formations, streaming to the weak points, where they had little success. They then attacked everywhere at once. Their ramps were slow arriving. Men with ladders rushed forward.
The Taken did not hold back. They threw everything they could. Rebel wizards fought them all the way, and, despite the harm they had suffered, for the most part kept them neutralized. Whisper did not participate. She was too busy.
The Lady and her companions arrived. Again I was summoned. I clambered aboard my horse and joined her, bow across my lap.
They came on and on. Occasionally I glanced at the Lady. She remained an ice queen, utterly without expression.
The Rebel gained foothold after foothold. He tore whole sections of retaining wall away. Men with shovels hurled earth around, building natural ramps. The wooden ramps continued their advance, but would not arrive soon.
There was one island of peace out there, around the crucified forvalaka. The attackers gave it a wide berth.
Lord Jalena’s troops began to waver. You could see a collapse threatening even before men turned to eye the retaining wall behind them.
The Lady gestured. Journey spurred his horse forward, down the face of the pyramid. He passed behind Whisper’s men, through them, stationed himself at the edge of the level, behind Jalena’s division. He raised his spear. It blazed. Why I don’t know, but Jalena’s troops took heart, solidified, began to push the Rebel back.
The Lady gestured to her left. Feather went down the slope like a daredevil, winding her horn. Its silver call drowned the blare of Rebel trumpets. She passed through the third level troops and leapt her horse off the wall. The drop would have killed any horse I’d ever seen. This one landed heavily, gained its balance, reared, neighed in triumph as Feather winded her horn. As on the right, the troops took heart and began driving the Rebel back.
A small indigo shape clambered up the wall and scuttled to the rear, skirting the base of the pyramid. It ran all the way to the Tower. The Howler. I frowned, puzzled. Had he been relieved?
Our center became the focus of battle, Catcher struggling valiantly to keep his line.
I heard sounds, glanced over, saw that the Captain had come up on the Lady’s far side. He was mounted. I looked back. A number of horses had been brought up. I stared down that long steep slope at the narrowness of the third level, and my heart sank. She was not planning a cavalry charge, was she?
Feather and Journey were big medicine, but not medicine big enough. They stiffened resistance only till the Rebel ramps arrived.
The level went. Slower than I expected, but it went. No more than a thousand men escaped. I looked at the Lady. Her face remained ice, yet I felt she was not displeased.
Whisper poured arrows into the mass below. Guards fired ballistae point blank.
A shadow crept over the pyramid. I looked up. The Howler’s carpet drifted out over the foe. Men crouched along its edges, dropping balls the size of heads. Those plummeted into the Rebel mass without visible effect. The carpet crawled toward the enemy camp, raining those pointless objects.
It took the Rebel an hour to establish solid bridgeheads upon the third level, and another hour to bring up enough men to press the attack. Whisper, Feather, Journey, and Catcher mauled them mercilessly. Oncoming troops clambered over drifts of their comrades to reach the top.
The Howler carried his ball-dropping to the Rebel camp. I doubted there was anyone out there. They were all in the pie-slice, awaiting their turns at us.
The false White Rose sat her horse out about the second trench, glowing, surrounded by the new Rebel council. They remained frozen, acting only when one of the Taken used their powers. They had done nothing about the Howler, though. Apparently there was nothing they could do.
I checked the Captain, who had been up to something... He was lining horsemen up across the front of the pyramid. We were going to attack down that slope! What idiocy!
A voice inside told me, My faithful need not fear, I faced the Lady. She looked at me coolly, regally. I turned back to the battle.
It would not be long. Our troops had put aside their bows and abandoned the heavy weapons. They were bracing themselves. On the plain the whole horde was in motion. But a vaguely slowed, indecisive motion, it seemed. This was the moment when they should have run headlong, swamping us, roaring into the Tower before the gate could be closed...
The Howler came roaring back from the enemy camp, moving a dozen times faster than any horse could run. I watched the big carpet pass over, even now unable to restrain my awe. For an instant it masked the comet, then passed on, toward the Tower. A strange howl wafted down, unlike any Howler cry I had heard before. The carpet dipped slightly, tried to slow, ploughed into the Tower a few feet below its top.
“My god,” I murmured, watching the thing crumple, watching men tumble down the five hundred foot fall. “My god.” Then the Howler died or lost consciousness. The carpet itself began to fall.
I shifted my gaze to the Lady, who had been watching too. Her expression did not change the slightest. Softly, in a voice only I heard, she said, “You will use the bow.”
I shuddered. And for a second images flashed through my mind, a hundred of them too quickly for any to be caught. I seemed to be drawing the bow...
She was angry. Angry with a rage so great I shook just contemplating it, even knowing it was not directed at me. Its object was not hard to determine. The Howler’s demise was not caused by enemy action. There was but one Taken likely to be responsible. Soulcatcher. Our former mentor. The one who had used us in so many schemes.
The Lady murmured something. I am not sure I heard it right. Sounded like, “I gave her every chance.”
I whispered, “We weren’t part of it.”
“Come.” She kneed her animal. It went over the edge. I threw one despairing look at the Captain and followed.
She went down that slope with the speed that Feather had shown. My mount seemed determined to keep pace.
We plunged toward an island of screaming men. It centered on a fountain of lime thread which boiled up and spread on the wind, taking Rebel and friend alike. The Lady did not swerve.
Soulcatcher was in flight already. Friend and enemy were eager to get out of his way. Death surrounded him. He ran at Journey, leapt, knocked him off his horse, bestrode the animal himself, leapt it down to the second level, ploughed through the enemy there, descended to the plain, and roared away.
The Lady followed the path he blazed, dark hair streaming. I stayed in her wake, utterly baffled yet unable, to change what I was doing. We reached the plain three hundred yards behind Soulcatcher. The Lady spurred her mount. Mine kept pace. I was sure one or both animals would stumble over abandoned equipment or bodies. Yet they, and Catcher’s beast too, were as sure-footed as horses on a track.
Catcher sped directly to the enemy encampment, and through. We followed. In the open country beyond we began to gain. Those beasts, all three, were as tireless as machines. Miles rolled away. We gained fifty yards with every one. I clutched my bow and clung to the nightmare. I’ve never been religious, but that was a time when I was tempted to pray.
She was as implacable as death, my Lady. I pitied Soulcatcher when she caught him.