Maquin felt a presence at his shoulder — Tahir, moving up to view the street. He had a cut on his cheek, a gash in his chainmail, but he seemed free of serious injury. He smiled at Maquin. ‘Still standing, then.’
‘Just,’ Maquin said, looking back to Jael.
‘What do you want?’ Gerda shouted down.
‘Are you all that Dun Kellen has left?’ Jael said, laughing. ‘No lord, no battlechief, just a fat old woman?’
‘Who are you calling a woman?’ Gerda yelled back, her warriors laughing at that. ‘Not too old or too fat to teach you a few lessons in warfare, you snot-nosed brat.’
Even Maquin laughed at that. He saw Jael scowl as laughter rippled along the battlements, even some from behind Jael, within his own ranks.
‘If there is anyone up there with rank to treat with me, I will gladly do so,’ Jael yelled. ‘If there is only a woman left to lead you, then Dun Kellen has fallen far already. Let me make this clear to any with intelligence enough to hear. Gerda and her son Haelan are the walking dead. This is only the van of my warband — more are coming. You cannot win, and I will have their heads on spikes before the next moon rises. Hand Gerda and her brat over and I will let you live, even welcome you into my own warband. Fight on and I will kill every last one of you. Not just you: your wives, your women, your children too. There will be no captives — no surrender.’
‘He talks a good talk,’ Orgull muttered, moving up beside Maquin and Tahir.
Maquin glanced along the battlements, saw fear amongst the warriors there.
‘Hard words break no bones, as my old mam used to say,’ Tahir shouted down.
‘Well said,’ Gerda laughed.
‘I’ll break bones soon enough,’ Jael said, then turned, raising his arm as he did so. Warriors swept forwards from the shadows and ran towards the fortress’ wall. At a horn blast they stopped and hurled a mass of spears, Maquin and his comrades ducking low. A man close to Tahir moved too slowly and a spear buried itself in his chest, hurling him back over the battlements’ edge. Maquin peered over the wall into the street, saw more of Jael’s warriors hurrying from the town’s side streets carrying ladders, others holding shields high over men that dragged a thick battering ram between them.
Warning shouts ran amongst the defenders; spears and rocks were hurled onto those below. A ladder slammed into place close to Maquin. He leaned out and stabbed down at a man climbing; his sword-tip glanced off an iron helm, burying itself in the man’s shoulder. The man screamed and fell backwards, replaced by another who swung at Maquin’s exposed arm. Orgull dragged Maquin back, then swung his axe at the enemy as he appeared at the top of the wall. In a spray of blood his head spun through the air, Orgull using his axe to push the ladder away, the headless corpse still draped over the top rung. The ladder wobbled in space, then crashed back to the street below, men screaming as they fell or were crushed.
More ladders appeared along the battlements and Maquin lost himself in the fight. A booming thud marked time to their violence as the ram crashed ceaselessly against the gates, fading to a blur in Maquin’s mind as he slashed and stabbed and snarled at the legion of faces that appeared before him. Always Orgull and Tahir were close by, his Gadrai sword-brothers, beating back the tide wherever they stood. When Maquin paused, his limbs heavy and weak, his lungs burning, he saw Gerda standing on the wall above the gates, yelling defiance, encouraging her warriors, even lifting rocks and heaving them over the battlements at Jael’s men below. As Maquin watched, jars of liquid — oil, he guessed — were thrown from above the gates, burning torches cast after them. There was the sound of flames igniting, then a terrible screaming. Maquin leaned over the wall and saw the ram and those holding it ablaze, some running yelling through the street, many rolling on the ground. The smell of charred meat hit his throat and he ducked back behind the wall.
Children moved along the top of the wall, taking skins of water to the defenders. Maquin beckoned one over and gulped from the skin. A shadow fell over them as Orgull reached for the water. The young lad’s eyes wide as he stared at Orgull’s axe dripping with blood and gore.
‘Thirsty work,’ Orgull muttered between gulps.
The battle lulled again and Gerda walked along the walls. She reached them and paused. ‘You know Jael well?’ she asked Maquin.
‘He was cousin to my lord.’ He shrugged. ‘We lived in Mikil together, but Jael and Kastell, my lord, they were never friends.’
‘His claim that more men are coming — do you think he tells the truth?’
‘He is a snake, would lie to his own mother. He betrayed his uncle and murdered his cousin in the caverns below Haldis. I would not trust anything he says. Most likely he was trying to spread fear amongst your men, hoping one would take your head and accomplish his goal for him. And he must know that you have many more men mustering in your outlying lands. He will be scared, knowing that time is against him.’
‘That is what I thought, too,’ Gerda said. She raised her voice. ‘Jael is a liar, he has no more men coming to aid him. We must just resist, hold them off until our banner-men from the outlying holds arrive.’ A ragged cheer rippled along the battlements and Gerda strode away.
Someone shouted a warning as ladders slammed against the wall.
‘Back to it,’ Orgull said, patting his axe.
They fought on, time losing all meaning to Maquin. Again and again Jael’s men assaulted the wall, and every time they were thrown back. As the sun dipped into the horizon, reflecting blood red against low clouds, a cry went up and Jael’s men finally broke onto the battlements, first one man gaining a foothold, then another, then a handful.
Maquin was fighting over the gates, guarding Orgull’s flank as the big man swung his axe into a warrior who had just leaped from a ladder-top onto the wall. The man was off balance and Orgull’s axe smashed into his chest, cutting through chainmail, leather, flesh and bone in an explosion of gore. Maquin heard a change in the battlecries behind him, turned and saw Jael’s men forcing their way onto the wall. Without thinking, he ran at them, shouting to Orgull and Tahir but unaware if they heard him or not.
He smashed into a man, feeling his teeth rattle with the force of the collision, and slammed the man over the wall with not even enough time to scream. Maquin set his feet and swung his sword two-handed, chopping into a man’s ribs, then bringing his blade up and down onto the man’s head as he crumpled. He stepped over the corpse, chopping, stabbing. His blade was parried, sending shivers along his arm, his wrist numbing. A hand grabbed him, dragging him forwards, and he stumbled over a fallen warrior and dropped to one knee. A man appeared before him, sword raised, Maquin’s death in his eyes. With a snarl, Maquin drew a knife from his belt, launched himself forwards, punching the knife beneath the line of his enemy’s cuirass, sinking to the hilt. He gave a wrench, saw fear fill the man’s face, the strength draining from him. Then he was shoving the dying man away and cutting at the man behind with sword and dagger.
He heard a battle-cry behind him, two voices shouting, ‘Gadrai,’ and he grinned, knowing his sword-brothers were with him. The battle-joy took him then, which he’d heard others call a madness but to him it was a fierce, pure ecstasy, new strength flooding his limbs, his lips drawn back in a half-grin, half-snarl. Soon the tide had turned, Jael’s men dying or fleeing before the three of them: Maquin, Orgull and Tahir.
As Jael’s men were killed or cast back over the wall, horn blasts called out from the streets beyond the fortress. The attack ended. Men withdrew quickly. All along the battlements the survivors sagged with exhaustion. Maquin gripped Tahir’s shoulder and smiled at him, too weary to speak.