Chapter 19

  “Make sure you have everything but at the same time, pack light. We don’t know how long it will take us to get to the capital. The saddlebags can be converted… Oh, you’ve done that already,” Oarf exclaimed, impressed. He was intently looking at where the girls were staging equipment on a table in the dining room, the inn empty of other customers.

  “We can’t leave without Grandpa,”

  “He is going to meet us in the capital. As strong as he has been lately, he will probably find us on the way,” Rues replied.

  “But what if he gets hurt or something?” Alyra asked.

  “Of all of us, he is the least likely to get hurt, and besides, what would you do if he did? Come on, Alyra. We talked about all this this morning.”

  Eiriean came from up the stairs wearing her travel clothes and carrying a bag. “We should leave, or they may shut the gate before we get there. Jorick said they were not going to keep it open any longer than they had to for people to leave.”

  Oarf took a last look around the dining room as they moved to the street. He locked the door behind him and slipped the key into his pocket. Hopefully, the damage won't be too bad when we get to come back.

  “Last check, everyone have everything? Alyra, got your sword? Rues, your hammer?” Their nods provided confirmation, and they began to move toward the North Gate.

  ***

  “They’re in the city already!”

  Glem took his hand off his sword as he and the others turned to Kiiryas. “Catch your breath for a moment and then explain. Who is in the city already? How do you know?”

  Kiiryas sat heavily in a chair that Garen had dragged over from the other side of the room. Taking a few deep breaths, he explained, “I was working my way through the town like I always do. You know, talking to people and listening to the gossip. I have been in this town for a long time and know every guard here by name. Well, when I got to the Dog Gate, there were two men there that I didn’t recognize. I thought maybe they were new, and I hadn’t met them yet. So, I stopped to listen for a minute. And they started talking about General Inehorn...”

  “Inehorn, but he’s the General of the Southern Army. Has been for close to twenty years,” Glem interjected.

  “The guards were talking about him and someone else. They didn’t say the name for the other person, but talked about him like he was in the city with them and was the devil himself—or a boogeyman or something.”

  Lorne stepped around the map table. “So, two guards you don’t know were talking about General Inehorn and someone else. What else do you remember?”

  “They were talking about how much the General was paying them to be bored on guard duty. Well, they aren’t bored now.”

  Jorick handed Kiiryas a glass of water.

  “What do you mean they aren’t bored now?”

  “Thank you. I mean, they are dead. I didn’t take time to hide the bodies so someone will find them soon. When I realized they were soldiers from the Southern Army and had infiltrated the city, I killed them off and ran right here.”

  The men stared at Kiiryas for a moment before speaking. “You did good,” Lorne said. “But obviously, this means we have a problem now.”

  “We had a problem before,” Glem countered. “Now, we know about it.”

  Lorne nodded at Glem's statement before continuing.

  “If they took the Dog Gate, it likely means there is a group in the city. That is a small out-of-the-way gate, but not far from the barracks, so it’s probably not a huge group. We have to secure the rest of the city as quickly as possible.”

  Lorne stepped into the hall and yelled to his clerk, “Get Sgt. Millis in here now.” He turned back into the room. “We know what we can know right now. I’ll coordinate from here. Kiiryas, I’m drafting you for the moment. You know all the soldiers, and the city probably better than we do. Go over to the North Gate, and help with the civilian evacuation. Explain the situation to the sergeant on the gate.”

  He looked at Jorick.

  “Fowler, sir.”

  “Tell Sgt. Fowler what happened and have him watch his men. It is unlikely they got to any of the city guards. Most of these men grew up here, but even so, it’s better to be safe. If you see anyone in a guard uniform that you don’t recognize, tell Fowler and then take them out of play. Capture if possible, and kill if not.”

  “Kiiryas, you are not a soldier. Don’t start acting like one,” Jorick said as the others in the room nodded, thinking of Kiiryas’ unique skill set.

  “Garen, you are going to cover the South Gate. Make sure that it is fully secure, and you have command there. Jorick, as discussed, you take the West Gate. The engineers should already be there. Seal that gate! I want it to take weeks to clear from this side.” Now, he looked over to the man just entering the room.

  “Sgt. Millis. The short version is that the Southern Army has infiltrated the city in stealth. You know all the guards in the city?”

  “Yes, sir. I know most of them pretty well and the rest at least by sight.”

  “Good. Then you are going to the East Gate. Make sure that it is closed and secure, that gate is not to open without the express order of one of the men in this room. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Looking around the room, he took a deep breath. “Hold those gates. If we lose any of them, we fall. Glem and I will coordinate from here. He is second in command until the battle is over. You have your orders. Good luck.”

  The men left hurriedly to secure the city while Glem and Lorne began to review the little they knew about the placement of the Southern Army and the weaknesses of the city.

  ***

  Rues, Alyra, and their guardians walked through the frantic city carrying their packs and preparing themselves for the journey ahead.

  “I still don’t understand why Grandpa is not coming with us. He is just one old soldier. What difference is it going to make?” complained Alyra.

  “I don’t know about one old soldier making much of a difference, but as I understand it, your grandfather is not just one old soldier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Eiriean looked at her husband for a moment. “Oarf, she doesn’t know. It is not your place to tell her.”

  “Tell me what? I know Grandpa was in the army. But, so what, there are hundreds of guards in the army here in the city. If they are not going to be enough, what does one more matter?”

  “Alyra, I think Glem was not just any regular soldier. Did you see how the Captain of the City Guard sent for him and then sent him on a mission? I think Glem used to be someone important. There, now you know.”

  “You will have to ask him all about it the next time you see him, Alyra,” Eiriean said.

  The streets of the city were packed with people all trying to prepare for the siege. Despite the yelling, there was no fighting. The guards had made examples of a couple of fights that had broken out, and the people were behaving themselves.

  The small group traveling toward the North Gate in preparation for its opening was only one of many. They pushed through the throngs of people, some getting angry at being shoved until they saw Alyra’s sword. Then they would suddenly find that they had immediate business elsewhere.

  Thousands of people waited at the North Gate, shuffling back and forth, peering across each other’s heads with great anxiety and murmuring. The guards tried to maintain order in the seething mass. Afraid for their loved ones and their own lives in the coming war, the people struggled with the wait for the guard to open the gate. The time set for it was rapidly approaching.

  “Line up orderly, like now!” shouted one of the guards on the gate. “We will begin to open the gate in five minutes. I don’t want any pushing or shoving. Everyone will be given time to go out. Remember, once you are out, proceed directly up the north road, and do not stop until you reach one of the cities between here and the capital, or the capital itself. Stopping on the road will make you a target for the incoming army. Does anyone have any questions before we open the gate?”

  “What do we do if we decide to come back to the city?” a man in the crowd shouted.

  “Do not come back to the city. We will not be able to reopen the gate. Once you have left, you must not return. You are on your own,” The guard shouted. “Are there any other questions?”

  The people in the crowd shook their heads as the reality of their situation began to sink in. Once they stepped through the gate, they would be completely alone, just as he said.

  “Line up. Line up now. No pushing or shoving.”

  He turned to the other guards on the massive windlass that raised the gate. “Open the gate.”

  The heavy gate swung up slowly until they were locked into their place. The windlass was then duly blocked to keep the gate up, but the huge pins that would lock it in permanent place were not set, driving home the fact that the gate would only be open for a few minutes. This was not a market day after all.

  The people would have to mobilize in an orderly fashion, following instructions and not thronging, since any misdemeanor would only make their passage slower and more dangerous. The mandate to form orderly lines and keep a steady—but not rushed—pace was repeated over and over through loudspeakers from the single stressed guard, who stood ready to intercept anyone causing a whisper of a problem.

  But there were no problems. People were simply too keen and too anxious, and no one wanted to spoil their own chances of escape while the gate was raised and the safety on offer.

  The first of the people began to move through in a slow chain, neat and calm, just as ordered by the guard. They appeared almost like a posse of schoolchildren queuing to go on some sort of school outing, only here, the air was thick with nervousness and stale sweat, and adrenaline. More than a dozen wide, they lined up to march out of the opening almost like soldiers.

  The guard had done a good job of organizing everyone.

  Alyra and the rest of the group were near the middle of the band of people, and the first citizens of Eshly were now only a few dozen yards from the wood line when they cleared the gate.

  “Let’s hurry. I will feel better once we are safely in the tree line. I feel so exposed here in the open,” Oarf urged. “I feel as if just about anyone could be watching us. Come now…”

  Sudden screaming was the first indication that there was now something wrong. With no warning at all and a faint swoosh, hundreds of arrows began falling among those fleeing the city, a veritable gray rain shower of spikes and potential bloodletting.

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  The only sound or warning was the soft fluttering of the fletchings on each of them as they fell. Wave after wave they came, seemingly directly from the clouds as if it rained weapons. The first grouping, tightly clustered, fell near the tree line, with later waves falling farther out near the city.

  “Ambush!” called Oarf. “I could feel it! I knew…”

  “It’s a trap!”

  “They’re waiting for us. We are all going to die.”

  Oarf grabbed Eiriean and Alyra’s shoulders, one girl in each of his strong fists, shoving and pushing them ahead of him, with Rues crying out, “Run! The gate’s still up. If we can get there before it falls, we have a chance. Stay together!”

  Then there came a pause as they dashed forward with every ounce of energy they possessed, making for any gap in between the milling, panicking throng. “Don’t fall, or you’ll get trampled!” cried Rues, her voice cracking as if surely about to cry. They turned and ran full speed for the only exit, the shadow of the raised gate now seen to offer scant safety for anyone.

  ***

  Kiiryas, meanwhile, had moved rapidly through the city after leaving the meeting at the barracks. The knowledge that the enemy already had agents in the environs was beyond disturbing for him. So, now it was apparent that all the precautions taken had been for nothing. There was no way of knowing how many enemies had arrived and hidden away here by this point.

  The guard change happened on schedule, so the foreign agents could not have been on that gate for more than a few hours, he reasoned. Here’s hoping it was just a handful. And if it’s more, then here’s hoping for strength…

  He listened to the conversations of the people around, hearing the panic beginning as they understood the siege was imminent. He arrived at the North Gate of the city just as they started opening it; they were just beginning to allow people to escape before the battle prevented them from leaving.

  The windlass creaked and moaned as it turned, sending a hellish groan of agony up into the sky, as if a portent of things to come. Eventually, after many slow and laborious turns, it succeeded in raising the heavy gate. The portal out of the city cleared, the guard allowed the people to start their long walk.

  The people thronged out of Eshly, nicely in line but still under obvious stress, eager to make their way to the other side. They pushed and pulled their carts loaded with whatever they could hold atop small and often fragile wagons, rapidly flooding the road to the capital as soon as the gate let them pass through.

  The ugly, relentless rumors that had begun to spread in force earlier in the day had made their imagined fears palpable. And with every justification, it was clear now. The first of the fleeing people were almost to the tree line when the arrows started to fall. They pushed and barreled forward, their politeness gone.

  Kiiryas had stood watching from the edge of the gate, standing next to one of his friends in the guard.

  “What was that? I swear it looks as though someone is shooting at them from the wood line. Arrows, see them?”

  “No, but the army is southeast. We haven’t heard of anyone on this side from the scouts. Can’t be…”

  “We have to get everyone back into the city. You make sure the gate stays open until everyone is back through. I am going to drag back this way everyone I can!” Kiiryas shouted.

  Kiiryas darted through the gate, running swiftly, and grabbed an old man trying to stand with an arrow through his shoulder.

  “Hold the gate,” his friend shouted. “We have to get them back in.”

  Kiiryas darted back through, grabbed the elderly man around the waist and tugged him into his own body. Then he handed the old man across to the other guards. “Take him to safety. Get the people organized and the wounded clear of the gate!”

  His voice was masterful, definite, and no one argued with it.

  The arrows were falling rapidly among the civilians on the road, dozens of archers firing now, and people falling, blocking the road in every direction. Some crawled in agony across the verges, low wails and tortured moans in the air.

  The arrows were slim, not the worst for inflicting lasting damage, but certainly more than sufficient to maim and stop everyone in their tracks, bringing them to the ground and leaving them writhing and screaming, bleeding out. Those hit in major organs would die of blood loss, but a few could be lucky.

  The arrows bought the enemy much time, too.

  “Leave your carts, grab the wounded! Go!” Kiiryas shouted over the screams of the injured. He grabbed a cart from one of the people and unceremoniously dumped every small object out of it onto the road, ensuring it was empty and ready to carry one of the wounded. He grabbed a man who was limping back toward town carrying a small child, also trying to support his screaming wife with an arrow all the way through her thigh.

  Kiiryas pushed him roughly into the cart with his wife, setting the small child down across the man’s lap as he wheeled the cart toward the gate. Two men, seeing his action, grabbed the handles of the cart from him and pushed it all the way in for him while he ran back to save the other wounded.

  “We have to close the gate,” the sergeant told the guards.

  “No! We have to wait,” they argued. “Anyone still out there is dead if we close it now.”

  “We are all dead if they get through the gate. That is an order. Close the gate!” His tone could not be mistaken.

  The guards began to slowly lower the gate, trying to allow as many in as possible before it was sealed, but they bowed low and scraped beneath it until the very final second, some even risking being crushed to death beneath its enormous weight.

  Kiiryas also slipped in the bottom of the nearly closed gate.

  “What are you doing? There are still people out there!” he screamed at the guard.

  “I had no choice. I had no choice. I had no choice,” the sergeant repeated over and over, staring blankly at the now severed portal and listening to the terrified wails and screams of those who had not made it through to the other side.

  The cries of the injured added tenfold to the chaos within the city, but soon, the hideous screams of those trapped outside the wall went silent as they were cut down by the arrows’ flights.

  Kiiryas shook his head in sadness and scampered up onto the wall. “There must be at least fifty archers out there. How did the scouts not see so many moving around the city?”

  He slipped from the wall faster than he had gone up, then disappearing into the confusion to find Jorick or Glem.

  ***

  “Cowards,” said the young man standing up from the road to the old soldier behind him. “Did you see them turn and run when our arrows started to fall?” The buckets that surrounded him were nearly empty of the hundreds of arrows they had held only a few moments before. “I need to work on my accuracy. It is hard to control so many at once. Anyway, I hit a few.”

  “It was an impressive display for certain, but don’t get too cocky. Those were not soldiers you were shooting at. Those were farmers and traders with women and children. Soldiers will be harder. Armor and shields will turn arrows, and for soldiers, we were too close to do enough damage before they would have gotten to us," the veteran cautioned his young charge. "That's why he sent me with you to keep you alive in case there were soldiers escorting the group out.

  “The gate is closed now,” he went on. “Do you think you can just stick a few of these remaining arrows into the gate to spook them? The distance should be well out of normal bow range, so it should make them think twice about opening up again."

  The young man smiled as he settled back to the ground, closing his eyes. The boulders remaining on each side of the road from when it had been cut began to quiver slightly.

  "Let's find out."

  ***

  “Did you see that? Looked like something moved in the woods,” one of the guards at the South Gate asked.

  “Probably just a deer or something. My pa and I got one there just a couple weeks ago, young roe deer. There were a lot of them out there. Besides, if it was Hasdingium, there are supposed to be thousands of them. I think we’ll see them clear when they get here.”

  “You're probably right. I would hate to wake the sergeant for a deer,” he said, nodding and smiling.

  The two guards decided that the movement must have been an animal of some kind.

  A mile behind the tree line, General Inehorn was busily appraising the situation and taking updates from his scouts.

  “The city is just ahead, General,” the soldier said.

  General Inehorn looked down from his horse at the soldier reporting. “Pass the word to stop back from the tree line. It is unlikely that they don’t know we are here at all, but we will use that ignorance to make things uncomfortable for them. Have the fire mages burn the fields around the city. All at once, if possible, and then hold the fire there until after nightfall. The longer the fires burn, the more afraid the city will be.”

  “Yes, sir. I will pass on your orders to the mages, sir.”

  ***

  The fire began suddenly on three sides of the city. On each one, it started in the middle and raced to the corners in less than a minute, and once it surrounded on three sides, it began to close slowly across the fourth. Like a curtain drawn across a window, the fire swept through the fields, making its way to the walls of the city and consuming everything in its path. The heat from the fire rose in the air, causing a haze that obscured the tree line on the other side. It was hard to tell through the smoke and haze, but it looked as if the forest was untouched.

  “Shit, that's not normal. Wake the sergeant,” the guard said to his friend as the fires first began. But by the time he was off the wall and heading into the gatehouse barrack, the flames was already pushing toward the city.

  “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” the sergeant demanded.

  “Sir, we woke you as soon as it first began. The fire covered everything in just a moment. I’ve never seen anything like it. One minute it was just a small flame over there…”

  He pointed just west of the southern road. “It spread sideways first and then ran in a sheet toward the city. The wind behind it is helping.”

  “Quick. Send word to the Captain. The city siege has started, and the city is closed off. Run, man.”

  ***

  “Okay, men, start at the gate and be sure to check all the houses on either side. Go a street in each direction and a block from the wall. We don’t want anyone injured accidentally.”

  Jorick looked from the soldiers he had brought with him to the engineers. “Is everything ready?”

  “We cleared the houses and have weakened the walls in the direction we want them to flow as they come down. Once you give the word, the ox teams will pull the last posts on each side. We should have a smooth collapse at that point.”

  One of the guardsmen came running back to where Jorick and the engineer were talking. “Lieutenant, we cleared each building, including the attic, cellars, and closets. Everyone is out of the area, and we have men positioned along each access into the area to prevent anyone from returning until it is safe.”

  Jorick nodded at the man and turned to the head engineer.

  “Go ahead and drop them. Make sure that the gate is properly sealed when they come down. Three points into the city is too many, but it is better than four.”

  The head engineer walked back toward the building.

  “Hook the teams up. We are cleared to go to work.”

  The other men maneuvered the four teams of six oxen each into play and hooked up the huge rope that ran through a window and into each building. “On my mark. Pull!”

  The teams moved forward with their hooves pressing individual cobbles deep into the street bed as they began to strain against their yokes. The ropes went tight and creaked as they stretched. The head engineer walked between the teams and the men controlling them, looking across the street and in through the windows of the first house.

  At a distance, he could see the front supporting posts of the houses slowly beginning to bow out. He walked back to the teams. “One more good pull should do it. We’re almost there.”

  The teams were eased off their yokes for a moment before they racked forward, back into them. The crack of the posts giving way echoed through the street, and the lines went slack for a moment while the oxen walked forward easily for ten feet, then the second line to each team went tight.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic,” Jorick said to the head engineer, raising his eyebrows, slightly underwhelmed.

  Without turning to him, the engineer made a wait motion with his hand. “Give it a minute. Mark! Pull!” he shouted a second time, eyes intently trained on the house up ahead.

  The front of the house bulged out at the bottom of the windows before its front wall cracked all the way down and collapsed, a huge pile of rubble and dust crashing to the ground.

  The sudden shock to the structure caused the rest of the structure to follow the front wall into total collapse, like an avalanche sliding sideways and covering the bottom half of the gate in rubble. The tremendously loud noise of the house crashing echoed down the street, and made Jorick jump and cover his ears with his hands.

  He looked at the pile and then at the head engineer who was simultaneously just turning to look at him. “I take it back.”

  The head engineer turned back to his men.

  “Set up the second one.”

  They rushed into the house directly across from the one that had just fallen, beginning to prepare it the same way.

  Half an hour later, a second loud crash echoed down the street, and this time, only the top foot of the gate was still visible behind the huge pile of what had recently been the houses of two of the wealthiest merchants in the city.

  ***

  The men on the South Gate received no warning when the boulders began to fall, dozens at a time dropping along the wall of the city. They were much smaller than could be thrown by a regular siege engine, but coming at a much faster rate.

  The huge rocks from a trebuchet or catapult would have reduced the city wall to rubble in minutes. These smaller stones didn’t do that but as they fell, they smashed arms and legs, and collapsed roofs on buildings near the wall, creating chaos in their range. Trapped on the wall between the stones falling and the inferno that raged on the bare hardened ground outside, the guards were at a loss for what to do. They hunkered down in the gatehouses, watching through the balistraria helplessly.

  Throughout the city, the men dressed as merchants and tradesmen began to start fights with the citizens of Eshly.

  They skillfully pulled multiple people into a fight, then would extract themselves and move on to start another one.

  Each fight pulled a few of the city guards away from their patrols to deal with it. It was a strenuous, demanding onslaught.