“We can’t wait until tomorrow. We attack today.”
“Yes, my lord,” the ogre replied, snorting aggressively. “We’re ready to kill.”
“I know that. Here is the plan. You will send a third of your troops up each attack route. Push past the human defenses and seize the buildings immediately inside the walls and the towers to either side.” He turned to another subcommander, one who had been part of his great horde ever since they had first descended from the Garnet Mountains some three years earlier. “Spleenripper, I want you to send a thousand hobs and gobs after each group of ogres. When you get into the city, spread out and drive the humans before you.”
Spleenripper cackled, gesturing to the ranks of brutish warriors already gathered behind the hillock. “We are already in position. Give the word, lord, and we will move!”
Ankhar nodded, turning to the captain of his goblin archers. “Eaglebeak, your companies must shower the humans on both sides of the gap with arrows. Shoot as fast as you can-don’t worry about using all your arrows. By tonight, we will be able to pick them up from the streets of Solanthus!” That worthy warrior, too, pledged his obedience.
Finally the half-giant turned to Laka and Hoarst. The Thorn Knight in his ash-gray cape stood there, listening stoically, while the old shaman, for her part, hopped back and forth on her feet. She barked with mirth as her stepson asked to see the small, delicate box. The rubies lining the cover and sides sparkled brightly in the midday sun.
“The king is ready, my lord-my son!” she crowed. “I will release him upon your command.”
“Good.” Ankhar looked at Hoarst, who nodded and pulled his cape back, just enough to reveal that he gripped the slender wand, the tool that barred the elemental from attacking them, ready in his right hand. The half-giant nodded, satisfied.
“Eaglebeak, assemble your archers. As soon as they launch the first volley, my mother will open the ruby box.”
The morning light heightened Brianna’s gaunt features, and as she blinked herself awake, Jaymes couldn’t help but see she was close to starvation. But she smiled at him, and warmth in her eyes softened her thin face and seemed to give life to her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. He had been propped up on an elbow, preparing to rise, but now he lay still, regarding her.
“You’re an admirable woman,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “You didn’t deserve to suffer a man like Rathskell, and yet now you’re doing his job far better than he ever did. The people of Solanthus are fortunate.”
“I… I’m not usually like this,” she said, sitting up and demurely holding the blanket to conceal her nakedness. “But… I needed-”
“I needed something too,” the man replied, touching her cheek. “I understand and I’m glad that it happened.”
“So am I,” she said before abruptly popping out of bed with the blanket draped, toga style, around her. “Now you have to get out of here.” She glided to the wall and pushed on a panel, revealing a dark passage behind a door he had not noticed before. “This will take you back to your room-hurry,” she said.
Jaymes returned to his bedroom along the secret hallway. It was already past dawn, and he could hear the sounds of footsteps and dishes rattling in the kitchen, all proof that the ducal palace was astir. He dressed quickly and was slinging Giantsmiter in its heavy scabbard over his shoulder when someone knocked, rather insistently, at the door.
“Come in,” he barked, picking up one of his miniature crossbows, making sure the spring was cocked, ready to receive one of the lethal bolts into the firing groove.
A courier in golden epaulets, one of the officers who had been at dinner the previous evening, opened the door and bowed his head briefly. “Forgive the intrusion, my Lord Marshal, but there is activity in the enemy camp. The duchess has been informed as well. She suggests we observe from the tower nearest to the ruin, atop the city wall.”
“I’ll be right with you.” The lord marshal prepared his other crossbow and settled both of them in the straps at his belt. “Take me straight to the wall,” he said.
They proceeded at a trot past many of the defensive breastworks that had been set up in streets, at intersections. Jaymes glimpsed archers assembled atop flat-roofed buildings and a walled courtyard where a small company of armored knights had gathered, holding the reins of their horses. They arrived at the base of the city wall, where four Sword Knights stood guarding a small door. The four knights stepped aside to let the two men pass so they could head up the interior stairs.
A few moments later, Jaymes climbed, slightly breathless, onto the top of the tower nearest to the ruined gatehouse. He was rather surprised to find the duchess already there. Brianna looked at him in welcome, though he saw no trace of the soft familiarity that had been in her eyes when he left her. She gestured to the plain beyond the city.
“They will be coming very soon now,” she said in a tone of icy calm.
She was right, Jaymes saw immediately. Huge columns of ogres, three thick formations, had moved to within a few hundred yards of the city, remaining just beyond longbow range. To either flank, even larger formations of goblins advanced, but where the ogres held to their massive columns, the gobs formed a series of long lines ranked parallel to the city wall. These were archers, and their bows were strung.
Inside the area where the West Gate had stood, Jaymes could see several wide, smooth paths through the rubble, each of them protected by steep, high walls of rocks to either side. Those attack routes emerged into the plaza that had once been directly inside the gate. In that open square, the city’s defenders had erected a series of wooden barricades and stone breastworks. The line was manned by able warriors, their spears and swords bristling, but they were a paltry substitute for the fortress wall that no longer existed.
“I need to go down there among the defenders,” Jaymes said. “I must get ready to meet and face this monster, in close quarters, when it comes.”
“But you won’t be able to see through all the chaos,” Brianna countered. “Shouldn’t you stay up here until it materializes and then take up your position?”
“No, it will attack there,” he said, pointing at the manned barricade across the plaza, utterly confident in his ideas. “And I need to be blocking its path, right in front of it.”
“Go, then, and may the gods grant you protection and success,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. For just a moment her eyes softened, and he saw the warmth, even a hint of the need for intimacy that had filled her face last night.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding and holding still for her touch. Finally Jaymes turned and started down the tower’s interior stairway. A moment later he emerged at the base and proceeded to follow the street just inside the city wall until he came to the plaza.
Looking around the plaza, which was busy with defenders rushing back and forth, he loosened the flap on the pouch holding the helm. But as yet he didn’t put on the helm.
“You look like an able-bodied bloke; take up a place here on the left flank,” said a Sword Knight, apparently the captain of this section of the line. “Can you use that big blade you’re carrying?” the knight asked skeptically.
“Yes. But I want to be in the middle of the line,” Jaymes said.
“Suit yourself,” the man replied, eyes narrowing slightly. “Hey, are you the lor-”
“I’m a warrior and a swordsman, and I’m here to do my job like everyone else.” Striding past the officer, the lord marshal made his way to the center of the long breastwork. The barrier consisted mainly of overturned wagons and carts all nailed together with long sections of planking. Here and there, large square stones had been stacked together to make a more solid barrier. The men who were holding this line were gaunt and sallow soldiers, with some citizens mixed in. All wore determined faces.
The battle began as a faint stirring of noise that first came from sections of the city wall to either side of the plaza. Jaymes watched as a shower of arrows materialized, high in the sky. The missiles clattered along the parapets, many of them skipping off the stones to plummet into the city streets. He hoped the duchess had ducked inside; the tower where he left her was the target of a particularly dense volley.