Before long, they reached the northern edge of the town, where the dwellings thinned, and a parklike expanse of grass and trees extended toward the ridgetop keep a kay away. Kharl could smell smoke, if faintly. The park seemed empty of armsmen, except in the distance off to the right, where a squad of riders had reined up, facing toward the white walls of the keep. The lancers wore dark blue and gray.
“We’ll circle to the west some to reach the lane,” Hagen ordered, turning his mount left onto a graveled road that fronted the park.
From the keep a series of horn blasts rang out, and there was the muted thunder of hoofs, but Kharl could see no riders. He took a moment to let his order-chaos senses feel the area before him. Almost immediately, he could feel an upwelling of white chaos more to the right, beyond the riders in blue and gray, who had already ridden northward, and out of sight. There had to be fighting in that direction, Kharl felt, although he could not say exactly how he knew, only that he did.
None of the armsmen spoke. The loudest sound was the clicking of hoofs on the pure white gravel of the lane. Kharl tried to shift his weight and came close to falling but grabbed the saddle and caught himself. He was not an instinctive rider; that was certain. In less than a tenth of a glass, the short column turned right onto a paved road that arrowed through an orchard toward the southwestern corner of the keep.
“From the right!”
Kharl turned in the saddle to see a good score of riders in the dark blue and gray riding toward them along a gravel service path in the orchard. Somehow he managed to turn the horse to face the attack, but he wasn’t about to try to charge the attackers and try to use the staff at the same time. He fumbled the staff out of the lance holder, hoping that he could stay mounted while using both hands on the staff.
Because the others rode toward the rebels, Kharl was at the rear when the enemy lancers reached them.
Several of Ilteron’s men went down, as did two of those in black and yellow, and then a lancer in blue and gray was bearing down on Kharl, his sabre coming toward Kharl in a vicious cut.
Kharl underhanded the staff, bringing it up from below the man’s guard. The heavy iron-banded end slammed into the lancer’s forearm, then into the side of his face. Kharl reeled in the saddle, but struggled back upright. The attacker lay on the ground unmoving.
Bringing the staff back into position, Kharl could only deflect the slash of the next attacker before the lancer was past him.
Another rider-Hagen-had wheeled his mount back and rode past Kharl, cutting down one of the attackers from the blind side.
The third lancer to charge Kharl saw the staff and tried to swing closer to the carpenter to block the staff short of its most effective length, but Kharl dropped the tip and angled it more from below, catching the attacker’s sabre arm while he was still a good three cubits from Kharl. There was a cracking sound, and the sabre went flying.
Then, just as suddenly as the attackers had appeared, they vanished, except for the six or so bodies that lay on the gravel of the service path.
Kharl found he was breathing heavily.
“You wield a mean staff, even mounted,” called out Hagen.
“Not…a…mounted weapon,” gasped Kharl.
“We need to get to the end of the lane.”
The six remaining lancers had regrouped. After putting the staff back in the lance holder, Kharl urged his mount up beside Hagen’s as they rode along the remaining quarter kay of the lane toward the two short stone columns where the orchard ended and a grassy expanse separated the orchard from the keep.
As they neared the stone posts, a column of riders in black and yellow rode toward them down a causeway from the keep. Kharl could see blood splashed across the tunics of those leading the oncoming column.
“Captain Hagen! Captain Hagen!” An undercaptain spurred his mount toward Kharl and the others.
“We’re here,” Hagen said quietly once the other had reined up. “The lady?”
“She and the boys-they’re waiting at the keep gates. The guards there have the causeway clear, and they’ve pushed them back. Don’t know how long they can hold.”
“Lord Ghrant?” asked Hagen.
The undercaptain shook his head. “He’s trapped on the ridge to the north of the keep. Holding them at bay. He’s trying to keep the wizards from getting close enough to fire the keep. They’d be lofting fireballs over the walls.” Kharl could sense the truth of that. He also hadn’t thought about wizards being able to destroy a stone keep.
Hagen looked to Kharl.
Kharl nodded. “He’s speaking the truth.”
“Get the lady and the boys down here as quick as you can, and with as many lancers as you can spare. We’ve already been attacked once.”
“Yes, ser.” The undercaptain turned his mount. Two riders galloped back up the causeway toward the gates, less than half a kay away.
To the right of the causeway, a squad of lancers had formed up, facing northeast, toward the chaos of battle that Kharl could sense all too clearly.
As they waited, Kharl looked down at his jacket and gray trousers, both streaked with blood, then at Hagen. “A word, Lord Hagen?”
Hagen eased his mount closer to Kharl, and the carpenter wondered how he could explain what he needed to do. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I would not see Austra become as Nordla, nor as Hamor. I would like your leave to depart for a time.”
Hagen’s eyes widened. “You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe-”
“No. This is another kind of debt. I will go, one way or another. I would like your leave.”
“You may have it. You know that if Lord Ilteron’s forces come to the harbor, we will depart?”
“I know.” Even as he said the words, Kharl had to wonder if he were being a fool, searching for an act of meaning because no matter how hard he had tried, he had been unable to find one, not one that turned out well, at least.
“There is one thing that may help you,” Hagen said quickly. “None have fought well or recently in Austra. Ilteron’s armsmen and lancers will not act quickly. If you act decisively, events will favor you.”
Kharl nodded. He had already seen that, and he was not even an armsman.
Hagen gestured, and one of the lancers, perhaps a serjeant, rode over and reined up. “The mage needs to get as close to the ridge as you can take him.”
The serjeant looked at Kharl skeptically.
Kharl ignored the skepticism. “The closer I can get, the more I may be able to do to help Lord Ghrant.”
“We’ll get you closer than you’d like,” came the grim reply. “You want to ride all the way?”
“The last part, if it’s not too far…on foot, I think.”
“You could use bushes for cover going up the ridge. You all right with that?”
“That would be better. So long as it’s not too far.”
“Thought as much. Ilteron’s lancers can’t ride you down in the bushes.” There was a pause. “What are you going to do?”
“What I can.” That was the only truthful answer Kharl had.
“Best we go.” The serjeant motioned, and another rider joined them, grim-faced, and without saying a word.
The two lancers flanked Kharl as the three rode eastward past the front of the keep and turned northward down a narrow gravel path that slowly curved back eastward around the base of the ridge. Less than half a kay onward, still near the base of a long slope, the serjeant reined up. To Kharl’s right was a mass of bushes, yet with an edge as clean as if laid out with a rule.
“This part of the ridge is mostly berry bushes. Been there since before there was a town, my grandsire said. Can’t ride a horse through it, but it’d be slow going unless you stay on the edges.”
“I’ll stay beside them.” Kharl dismounted and handed the reins to the serjeant. “I won’t be needing the horse.”
“Good luck, ser.”
From the lancer’s tone, Kharl could tell that the man thought him a dead man-or mad, or perhaps both.