There were more than enough of them, for there were more grappling hooks than there were royal armsmen, and more and more of the attackers made it across the walls while the defenders were occupied picking off their companions. And just as the attackers had planned, every man who made it to the ground inside instantly became a greater threat than those still swarming up the ropes. He had to be dealt with, and that diverted the defenders’ fire from the walls themselves. Leeana loosed again, and then again, killing one target and watching her arrow glance off the other’s steel plate. She had no time for a follow-up shot against that assassin; he was coming straight at her, and she dropped her bow, shed her protective finger tab, and swept out both of her short swords.
The man wore an open-faced helmet, and he was close enough now for her to see his eyes, see his sudden savage smile, as he realized the single defender dancing towards the head of the veranda’s steps was unarmored. His sword was much heavier-and at least a foot longer than hers-as well, and she had no shield. He bounded forward, three or four others following at his heels, and Leeana sensed his eagerness to cut her down and be on about the mission which had brought him here. His own armor and helmet gave him an enormous edge, and he drove straight up the steps towards her with a veteran’s ruthless determination to capitalize on that advantage.
It was a mistake.
Leeana was taller than most men-over half a foot taller than him-with more than enough reach to offset the greater length of his sword, and war maid training was actually harder, harsher, and more demanding than that of most professional armsmen. It had to be, for they needed that razor edge of lethality, because unlike Leeana, the majority of war maids were smaller than the men they were likely to confront in combat. Leeana wasn’t, but she’d trained to the same hard, unforgiving standard as her smaller sisters, and her own sword technique had been adopted directly from Dame Kaeritha Seldansdaughter. She hadn’t trained in it for as many years as Kaeritha, but very few swordsmen-and even fewer swords women — had been mentored by a champion of Tomanak and then polished under the unrelenting eye of Erlis Rahnafressa and Ravlahn Thregafressa since she was fourteen years old.
The assassin’s eyes widened in astonishment as Leeana’s left hand blade engaged his longer sword, twisting elegantly about it, binding it and carrying it out and to the side. It was a very brief astonishment, however-his eyes hadn’t finished widening before the razor-edged steel in her right hand licked out through the opening she’d created, precise as a surgeon’s scalpel, and sliced effortlessly through his throat.
He went down with a bubbling scream, the sudden geyser of his life’s blood splashing Leeana’s arm, and his tumbling body tripped the man behind him. The second assassin managed not to fall, but he was off center, fighting for balance, as Leeana lunged and recovered in a single, supple flash that left another slashed throat spouting blood in its wake.
It had taken perhaps three heartbeats, and the men following on her victims’ heels paused in what might have been consternation. The two bodies before Leeana encumbered the steps up to the high veranda. There might be space enough for two of them to come up them simultaneously, but they were far more likely to get in one another’s way or stumble over their unfortunate companions, and no one was inclined to share their fate.
Yet neither were they inclined to abandon the effort, and more and more of the King’s armsmen had been forced to abandon their bows as the tide of attackers swept over the walls. The courtyard was carpeted with bodies-there had to be at least thirty or forty of them-and the gods only knew how many more had fallen backward off the wall, but at least that number had made it into sword range of the archers. They’d charged straight towards the central lodge, forcing the guardsmen to intercept them and stop picking off their fellows as they swarmed across the wall.
Now half a dozen of them flowed across the body-strewn ground to join the men glaring up at Leeana, and her heart sank as they began to spread. There was only the single set of steps, and the veranda was high enough to be an awkward, climbing scramble from any other approach. The wooden railing along its edge was open, without any sort of upright pickets to bar anyone willing to make the climb, however, and she could be in only one spot at a time.
She drew a deep breath, forcing herself to focus on only the next few moments, and stepped back slightly from the head of the steps.
Tellian of Balthar dropped his bow.
He and Hathan had dropped at least a dozen attackers as they scaled the wall, yet there’d never been any hope of actually holding it with only two bows, for the attackers had redoubled their efforts when they realized there were only two archers on the southern side of the lodge’s perimeter. They’d swarmed up the ropes, vaulted across the top of the wall, and dropped exultantly to the ground at its foot, with only a tithe of the casualties their companions had suffered elsewhere.
Exultation became something else as they found themselves face-to-face with two wind riders and a one-eared chestnut mare with an eye of unnatural blue flame.
Dathgar, Gayrhalan, and Gayrfressa had swept from east to west along the southern wall while Tellian and Hathan drove arrows into the attackers’ faces. Now they wheeled, facing back to the east, and the space between the the solid block of stables and the lodge’s outer wall was no more than seventy feet across. With the riding ring’s demolition, it was also smooth and obstruction free, like a corridor between two sheer walls.
With three coursers at one end of it.
The men coming over that wall could not have been more badly positioned to receive a cavalry charge. They were in no particular formation, without the tight frontage and pikes or halberds which might have fended off even regular cavalry, far less coursers, and the space in which they were trapped was just long enough for those coursers to spring off their hocks and accelerate towards them with preposterous speed.
As Leeana had already realized, whatever else Erkan Traram’s men might be, there were precious few cowards among them. Most of the men who’d already made it to the ground drew their swords. Some flung themselves forward, trying desperately to somehow get under the coursers to gut or hamstring them. Others pressed as close to the outer wall as they could, trying to stay out of the coursers’ path and come at them from behind once they’d passed. A handful sprang towards the back of the stables, prying frantically at closed and barred doors, and another handful, closest to the eastern end of the confined space, boiled around that edge of the stables, funneling past it to join their fellows in the main courtyard. And then “ Balthar! ” Tellian bellowed, leaning low from his saddle, and red spray flew as his saber removed an assassin’s right hand.
The man’s sword spun away, still clenched in his severed hand, and Dathgar trumpeted a high, piercing echo of his rider’s warcry. Another assassin screamed as steel shod hooves bigger than his own head crushed the life from him, and the baron swept along the inner face of the wall, while Hathan and Gayrhalan took the back side of the stables. The other wind rider always took Tellian’s left flank in battle, for he was left-handed, and his own saber flashed crimson as his courser thundered forward.
Gayrhalan’s herd stallion had known what he he was about when he christened the iron gray “Storm Souled.” He’d never been noted for the gentleness of his temper, but unlike Dathgar, he sounded no trumpet call of defiance; he was too busy crushing a shrieking mercenary’s shoulder into ruin between battleaxe jaws. His victim squealed desperately as the courser jerked him off his feet, snapping him in midair like a greyhound with a rabbit, without even breaking stride. Then the body was tossed aside, to bounce brokenly off the stable wall, even as Gayrhalan put his barded shoulder into a fresh victim, knocking him off his feet to sprawl directly in front of Gayrfressa.