* * *
"They've stopped retreating, sir," Donnuld Grayn panted.
"That's obvious," Esmond said, taking a bite out of the skin of the orange in his hand and tossing another to his second-in-command.
He squeezed the juice into his mouth, pitched the husk aside, and swished his hand in an ornamental fountain before drying it on the skirt of his tunic. The noise of combat grew in the courtyard ahead, and far and faint came the distinctive sound of one of Adrian's grenades. Esmond's grin grew; from the barely-glimpsed tower came another slow, aimed arquebus round. There was a shriek behind him-somewhere on the battlements that he'd bypassed when he took his men straight through the breach in the wall. Amazing what an entire oxcart full of gunpowder run into the ditch in front of the wall would do. The dry moat just focused the hellpowder's power on the stone.
Little brother's been busy, he thought, taking up his sword and buckler again, and pulling down the helmet he'd pushed up on his forehead. Trickles of tepid sweat ran down from the sponge lining, and the world shrank to a T-shaped slit of brightness. . and he felt alive. Alive in a way he hadn't, except in combat, since Nanya died.
"Well, what are you lot waiting for?" he said as he came through into the next courtyard.
The Palace of the Directors of Vase was built to the same general plan as the King's house in Chalice, but it was older-older, and less centrally planned, having grown slowly over centuries. Essentially it was a series of interlocking courtyards, sometimes separated by narrow service alleys, and sometimes as much as three stories tall. Some were elaborate with fountains and mosaics, others workaday storehouses, warehouses, workshops, guard barracks. The one through the arched gate ahead was one of the fancy ones, which was all to the good-the tall fountain in the middle would provide his troops with clean water, once they'd taken it.
"Keep down, sir," an officer said.
The men here were, behind the pillars of the arcade that lined the courtyard, moving only in short dashes between points covered by the stone. The movement got thicker as the hundred or so reinforcements he'd brought with him filed in among the stalled assault point element.
"They've got archers over there," the officer continued. Maklin, that's his name, Esmond thought. He'd made a point of learning all the officers' names, at least. "They're good, and they're not moving for shit."
Esmond nodded thoughtfully, looking at a couple of bodies out in the open. The black-fletched shafts were driven right through them, scale-reinforced leather corselets or not. From the angle, they'd been hit by men on the second-story balconies fifty yards to the east. Spearheads twinkled among the ground-story columns, ready to receive anyone who'd run the gauntlet of arrowfire across the open space. Many Islander archers used recurved bows, backed with strips from the mouthparts of sea monsters. They had a heavy punch, in expert hands.
"We need to get them distracted," he said. "Maklin, get twenty-five men down to each end of this arcade." The arches and pillars ran around all four sides of the courtyard. "Have them work towards the enemy, from pillar to pillar. Donnuld, back out and up, onto the second story-give those fucking bowmen something to think about besides sniping. Take a company."
Esmond waited with a cat's patience while the orders were obeyed. His mind and body felt light, tight, strong; it was like the Games, in a way.
"All right, men," he said when he heard the rising panic in the voices from the second story, across the way. An archer leaned far out to shoot at a man dodging from one pillar to the next; while he aimed and drew, a javelin sank into his back, and the body arched out to fall, thump, in the courtyard below.
"All right," he said again, raising his voice. "What are you waiting for, the enemy to send you enough arrows to open an archery shop? Follow me!"
With the last word he was sprinting out, dodging and jinking, as if this were the running-in-armor event at the Games. There are times, he thought, as a bodkin-pointed shaft chipped marble by his right ankle, when straight up the middle is the only way to go.
With a roar like the sea striking rocks, the troopers behind him surged out of cover on his heels. He kept well ahead of them until they were almost in contact. A volley of thrown spears came at him; he batted one out of the air with his shield as he curved around the fountain. Then he checked his pace, another, and the Strikers struck the line of Islander spears together.
One slammed forward, aimed for his belly. He swayed aside, his body moving in a single smooth curve, and then punched the boss of his small round shield into the face behind it. Bone crackled; he ignored the wounded man and turned his run into a lunge. The long sword in his right hand slipped into a throat; he twisted and jerked it free against the constriction of spasming muscle. Blood sprayed in an arc like water coming out of a hose as the man turned in a half circle before he fell. A saber slashed at him, motion caught out of the corner of his eye; Esmond swept his shield around in a circle, moving it without putting it in front of his face and blocking his vision. The steel struck and sparked on the studs in the surface of the leather, wrenching painfully at the wrist of his left hand. Esmond stabbed low automatically, stepped forward, beat a spear aside with his sword and let the blade and shaft slide up his sword and punched the man behind it in the face with the guard.
"To me, Strikers!" he shouted. "Push 'em, push 'em!"
They were pushing them, in a heaving, thrashing confusion that swayed backward a step, another step, another, shouting snarling point-bearded faces and spearpoints, curved swords, knives. Men locked chest-to-chest, no room to dodge now, naked extreme violence, blows given and taken. Then they were under the shade of the arcade's pillars, then past it, and suddenly the combat broke into knots of men that spilled out into a big room-an audience hall, like Casull's back in Chalice.
"Rally, rally!" he called.
Beside him a signaler pulled a horn from his belt and blew the call. The chaos gradually sifted itself into order, men coalescing with their comrades, small bands being overrun, until there were again two distinct bodies of troops. His grew, as more men filtered in, and the Vase troops retreated to stand in a clump around the high throne with its backing of peacock-inlay feathers. Some of them, he noted with glee, were standing guard at the rear entrances to the room. Adrian was there, right enough. How in Wodep's name did he get over the wall? Think about that later.
Donnuld Grayn came panting up with his company; a couple of them were waving inlaid bows and pear-patterned quivers, or carrying silver-sheathed daggers on their belts.
"Got those fucking archers," Grayn wheezed. "Couldn't bear on us much, up there-good idea. Some sort of Director's Guard, I think-lot of 'em were Southrons, war slaves, maybe."
Esmond nodded. "We're through the rind and near the kernel. Let's see how determined this lot are."
"Not too much, I hope," the Cable officer said, rubbing his hands on his kilt to dry them. "Wodep bugger me blind, I've never seen anything like some of the rooms here-Director's palace, all right, a looter's delight."
"Let's get the fight finished first," Esmond said. "Surrender!" he called to the defenders.
A roar of obscene abuse returned, and a scatter of throwing axes, javelins and arrows; men snapped up shields around him as he ducked, and he could hear things clattering off them. One man backed into him involuntarily as a shaft went into his shield with a solid whack, the point showing through the tough layers of greatbeast hide and metal facing.