I dutifully turned the chair and rolled him across the round room to where maps had been hung on the opposite wall. Diagrams of every level had been drawn in great details and marked with sigils and signs I could not decipher.
“I have my engineers opening the false columns below. We will light fires in them. They will bring fire to key stones. You know what happens to granite when it is heated, yes?”
“It can powder.”
“Exactly. Within an hour or two this fortress will collapse. With any luck, it will take the bulk of the invaders with it.”
I nodded. “A couple of hours is enough to get everyone clear. We’ve already stationed the First Naleni Dragons and the Keru in the mountains to hold the gaps as we evacuate. The messages we’ve sent to Moriande should bring more troops. We’ll live to fight another day.”
“You may, Master Soshir, but this is my last battle.”
I crouched and laid a hand on his. His flesh was cold, but I still felt life in him. “This is not your final battle. The previous times the walls have fallen did not signal the end of the Derael family. You might think, had you not become ill, this place would never fall. You could have held it-through the first assault and the second. Perhaps a third. But all the Mystics Empress Cyrsa led into the Wastes could not stop Nelesquin from taking this fortress. Just as he brought his invaders and his living siege machines, he would bring more and more terrible creatures. Losing this fortress is not defeat, but surrendering because of its loss is.”
The man hung his head for a moment. “You do not understand how it is, Master Soshir. I am Fortress Derael. My weakness is its weakness. We die together. There is no dissuading me from this.”
Another voice, a young man’s voice, broke in from the doorway. “I shall not dissuade you, Count Derael. I order you to evacuate.”
The count did not look up. “You honor me, Prince Iekariwynal, but that is an order with which I cannot comply.”
The young Virine prince strode into the room in white armor with a red bear rampant crest on the breastplate. “You are my champion, Count Derael, and I need you. I will not have you die here.”
“But I am useless in your service.”
“No. I heard Master Tolo lecture his troops on the way about how it was more important to make the enemy worry about death than it was to kill them. These kwajiin know no fear, but they can learn it. Your very survival will inspire fear. Your knowledge will be the seed of their defeat.”
“Better the two of you conspire to defeat the enemy than convincing me of my worth.”
But before either of us could comment, a horn blew from the battlements outside. I ran to the window and the Prince wheeled his champion forward. There, in the distance, came a massive beast with a pavilion on its back. The creature plodded along slowly, but such was its size that it closed the distance swiftly. This made it easy for me to read the pennants flying above the pavilion.
“Nelesquin has arrived.”
The Prince pointed. “Look there.”
Evil looking bat-birds drifted along over the treetops, then climbed and began to circle like vultures. “They have archers on their backs.”
“So they do, Highness.” The count’s eyes narrowed. “This changes things. He will begin the assault now.”
“I know. Perhaps I can slow him down.”
The count caught the hem of my sleeve. “You will not commit the foolishness you accuse me of, will you?”
“We’ll both live to continue this discussion later, my lord.” I squeezed his shoulder then left the tower. I crossed the inner courtyard, passed through a sally port which was closed behind me, then mounted the battlements on the outer wall. Though I wore no armor, the tiger-hunting crest in orange on a black robe would be easy enough for my brother to spot.
The creature bearing the pavilion stopped and lowered its head to the ground. Two figures emerged from the tent, walked past the driver, and along the beast’s neck. Nelesquin leaped to the ground from the snout while his companion floated down. As they came forward, a company of the Steel Bear archers mounted the battlements to either side of me.
I waved their bows down. “We’ll trade words, not arrows.”
Nelesquin strode forward casually. He picked his way carefully across the battlefield. New grasses had sprung up, but there was no mistaking the white of bones and the black of blood-fed earth. The confidence on his face brought back fleeting glimpses of our previous meeting at Tsatol Deraelkun, back before we had become mortal enemies.
He opened his arms wide in welcome. “I had been told you lived, brother, though I already knew it in my heart.”
“I would not know who I am, brother, save for your companion’s healing arts.” I bowed in the direction of Kaerinus. “For the first time ever, I am grateful for the vanyesh.”
“Had you come to be healed sooner, Soshir, we could have finished this game much more quickly.”
I shook my head. “This game is played on a schedule none of us have made.”
A peevish expression flashed over Nelesquin’s face, then a false smile conquered it. “A call for the surrender of Tsatol Deraelkun will be rebuffed, yes?”
“As quickly as my suggestion that we duel again for possession of the fortress.”
“Gambit offered and declined; very good.” Nelesquin looked around at his army. “You cannot win. You know that.”
“But I can cost you a victory.” I pointed to the north. “You know the might of Nalenyr is coming.”
“You always did find the Naleni daunting. But me, never.” He posted fists on his hips, drawing attention to the fact he wore no swords. “Do not take it as any sign of insincerity that I do not kill you myself.”
“Not that. Perhaps cowardice.”
“I expected that.” He pointed toward his troops, and one of the hammer-headed apes, easily thirty feet tall with heavily muscled arms almost as long, lifted a huge stone. He drew it back over his head and I thought for a moment he meant to knock me from the wall. Instead the creature-responding to the driver’s jerking of gold rods-pounded the stone into the ground. It bounced, and I felt both that initial impact and the second.
Before I could puzzle out the reason for that action, another tremor ran through the ground. The wall shifted. Cracks appeared in the mortar, and support for the catwalk snapped. Archers fell, some over the wall but most into the courtyard. I dropped to a knee, then leaped free as my section of the battlement collapsed.
The roadway between the castle’s walls exploded upward. Cobblestones rose to meet me, propelled by the star-shaped nose of a mole the size of an elephant. Its stubby claws raked dirt into the hole, then it sprang out. Once the mole uncorked the hole, kwajiin warriors swarmed from it.
Arrows sleeted down, spinning blue-skinned warriors away. I landed in a crouch, drawing both my swords. Draw-cuts swept an arm from one kwajiin and blinded another. An arrow-stuck soldier stumbled into a lunging warrior. I parried with one blade and stabbed the other through his throat.
Beyond that hole another opened, and another. Then rocks flew, shattering crenels. Stone shards rained down into the space between the walls, ricocheting indiscriminately. Men screamed as they pitched from the walls. At such close range, the Steel Bears could speed shafts into gaps in kwajiin armor. One arrow punched clean through a helmet, emerging below the warrior’s jaw, dropping him at my feet.
No time for rally cries or bold boasts; it was Grija’s harvest. Reap or be reaped, mercy a mere fancy that would find no champions. Blood sprayed over walls, glistening wetly long after the heart stopped pumping. Cleaved limbs fell heavily to the ground and hands clutched convulsively. Men sat against walls, futilely stuffing entrails back into their abdomens. Others shrieked silently, their words emerging as black blood from deep within.
I was at once unconscious and hyperaware. In the chaos I noticed everything. Without thought I labeled the enemy in terms of threat, then dealt with the most deadly. I flowed forward with purpose, not trying to escape. My intent was to kill as many of the kwajiin as I could.