“Why is that good?” Mari asked.
“According to rumor, they give you a ration of chocolate if they think you’re likely to die carrying out your orders,” Kira explained. “It means they think we’re going to survive today.”
“Or it means they did not have enough chocolate,” Alain said.
Kira grinned. “Thank you for pointing that out, Sir Mage. You must be a veteran yourself.”
He managed a small smile to her, receiving a look of surprise in return. It was still too dark to see much beyond the wall but the glowing embers of the fires that had raged the day before. Alain looked along the battlement, where new weapons were stacked ready for use: crates of crossbow bolts, baskets of spears, piles of rocks and bricks. Alain had watched soldiers pulling apart buildings last night and wondered at the reason. Now he saw that it was so those bricks could be used as weapons, as if the city itself was helping in its defense.
Mari stared toward the Imperial position, where preparations were still shrouded by darkness. “We’ll be needed soon. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“Curiously calm, my Mage. Maybe I’m too scared to realize that I’m scared.”
“Sometimes it’s like that,” Sergeant Kira offered. “Like our minds can’t handle it, so they just say all right, get on with it.”
“I guess I was like that before the Terror went down,” Mari said. She rubbed her arm in the place where an Imperial crossbow bolt had left a scar.
“May I say something, Lady?” Kira asked.
“As long as you don’t call me lady.”
“Yes, Lady,” Sergeant Kira said, leaning on the battlement next to Mari. “I’d only spoken to a Mechanic once before in my life, before meeting you I mean. It was just a job, me escorting a pair of Mechanics to work on the lights at the city hall. One of them ignored me, and the other was brusque but not unkind. Still, after that I didn’t want to search out Mechanics for conversation. And Mages…Sir Mage, I once saw a Mage looking at me, a man a fair bit older than you, and it was the most frightening thing I ever saw. I ran, I admit it. I thought he might want me for something.”
“You were wise,” Alain said. “Too many Mages have taken to heart what the elders teach, that others matter not at all. He might have killed you on a whim, or used you badly in other ways.”
“We’re trying to change that,” Mari told Kira. “Changing how Mechanics view commons, and how Mages view everyone. We’re making progress. It’ll probably be generations before we’re all comfortable together, but down in Tiae we can all talk to each other.”
“I’m not just talking to a Mechanic,” Sergeant Kira said. “I’m talking to the daughter herself. I’ll tell my children about it someday. Me on the walls of Dorcastle with Lady Mari.”
Mari smiled. “That will be something, won’t it? And I’ll tell mine about being on the walls with Sergeant Kira.”
“You want to have children, Lady? You and your Mage?”
“Yeah. Someday. I know that sounds weird, a Mechanic and a Mage having children, but not so long ago I never would’ve believed a Mechanic and a Mage could be married.” Mari shrugged and smiled again. “Yet here I am.”
Kira looked back toward the Imperial lines, her smile vanishing. “It’s odd to speak of children and the future, isn’t it, Lady? When the legions wait just over there?”
Mari sighed, following Sergeant Kira’s gaze. “We’re fighting for the future, Kira. Our children’s future.”
Kira nodded. “Lady Mari? You’ve fought the legions before this. They say you’ve gone to Marandur.”
“Yeah. Twice.”
“I’m serious, Lady.”
“So am I, Sergeant Kira. Tell her, Alain.”
“Marandur is not a place anyone would want to go even once,” he said, remembering the awful ruins of the ancient siege. “But we have been there twice. I do not understand why the Imperials go into battle when they have such a monument to the cost of war on their own land.”
“Maybe that’s why the Imperial government doesn’t want their people seeing it,” Mari commented.
Alain sensed something off in the darkness. “Mages move. They prepare.”
Sergeant Kira stared at him, then ran to tell Colonel Teodor. Within moments word was being passed rapidly down the battlement and to the reserves waiting below. Lieutenant Bruno ran up, saluting Mari. “Lady, Field Marshal Klaus reports that all is in readiness.”
“Have him let me know if he needs anything from me,” Mari said. “I’ll be right here.”
Almost as if her words had been a cue, a moment of silence fell. To Alain the world seemed to be holding its breath.
Imperial horns blared all across the front, echoing and reechoing so that it sounded like every legionary facing them had joined in that fanfare. Then from the darkness ahead burning ballista projectiles rose in a barrage that lighted the dimness of the pre-dawn twilight like a hundred tiny suns. Alain watched the smooth trajectories of the flaming weapons as they rose to their peaks, then arced downward toward the second wall and the buildings behind it.
Chapter Eight
Dimly illuminated by the fiery projectiles overhead, dense masses of legionaries charged toward the wall, siege towers moving slowly in their wake. Alain crouched behind the battlement as a brutal cloud of crossbow bolts slammed into the stones.
Behind him, Confederation ballistae launched their own deadly projectiles, mostly bundles of fist-sized and larger rocks that fell on the advancing legions, but mixed in with them flaming balls of oil-soaked rags that burst among the enemy to hurl fire in all directions.
Dozens of fires had sprung up behind the defenders as the Imperial bombardment struck. A few of the blazing Imperial projectiles hit the battlements, shattering into sprays of burning fragments.
Alain sensed Mages nearby, preparing spells. The closest ones were among the charging legions, just in front of the main gate. “The gates!” he yelled. “Mages prepare to create openings in the gates!”
That word, too, was repeated rapidly along the wall and behind it. Alain heard a sudden roar of triumph from the Imperials near the gate, but a moment later felt two of the Mages die.
Mari leaned out despite the rain of crossbow bolts and fired her rifle twice.
Alain felt the death of the third Mage.
There was a slight sense of familiarity in that one. Sometime, somewhere, he had met the Mage who had just died. Alain felt other Mages dying farther down the wall as they also fell to crossbows before they could allow the Imperials entry. Fell because Alain had told these commons exactly what to do to kill them and prevent their spells from aiding the Imperials. He searched his feelings for the sort of remorse that Mari felt when Mechanics died at her orders, and felt little. There were times when it was a comfort to have belonged to the Mage Guild, where personal relationships were regarded as both wrong and meaningless. Aside from Mage Asha, the friendships he had developed with other Mages had all come after he and the others had left the Mage Guild.
Shouts could be heard below and a brief clash of steel, as the few legionaries unfortunate enough to have used the Mage-created openings to enter the main gate found themselves trapped on the inside, massively outnumbered and unable to retreat.
Mari was exposing herself only enough to aim and fire her weapon, but Alain, looking out at the attackers immediately before the main gate, saw no target worth his own powers.
He got up, leaning out slightly over the battlement to look both ways down the wall.
Visible in the light provided by the battle and the dawning day, Alain could see siege towers far to his left and right. Apparently the Imperials had figured out that sending siege towers against the wall where the daughter’s banner stood was a bad idea. What they had not realized was that Alain could place his spell on anything he could see.
He concentrated again, despite the crossbow bolts plucking at his robes, trying to draw power as much as possible from the area in fro
nt of the wall rather than behind it as he created great heat above his palm and sent it to the siege tower on his left, and then did the same to the tower on his right.
Both Imperial siege machines erupted into flame that turned them into towering torches, making it easier for the defenders to see the other Imperial attackers around them.
Alain dropped down behind the battlement, breathing heavily after the exertion.
“Dear,” Mari told him, glaring, “are you trying to make it easy for the Imperials to kill you?” She aimed carefully, fired, then looked back at Alain. “I’m supposed to be the impulsive one, remember? —What?”
“A dragon,” Alain said, sensing the spell draining almost all of the power remaining before the wall. “There.” He got up far enough to point.
Mari’s expression changed to surprise, then shock. “It’s charging through the legionaries. I mean that. It’s coming through them, plowing a path. Stars above, it’s already wiped out at least a cohort.”
“The elders would care nothing for that,” Alain said. “They know where I am because I used the heat spells, they suspect I am responsible for the way the defenders so easily slew the Mages who tried to open passage through the gates, and they want me dead. The cost of that to their Imperial allies is of no concern to them.”
Mari shouted down toward the Tiae rifles. “Remember! Aim for the eyes and inside the mouth!”
Alain stood up and the dragon burst into his view, charging straight for the place where he still stood at the battlement, legionaries frantically trying to escape the path of the monster, many being hurled aside or crushed.
Mari’s rifle crashed, followed by that of Sergeant Kira, and then a rattle of several shots from the Tiae rifles. Sparks appeared on the dragon’s head as bullets hit and were deflected. “What are you doing?” Mari yelled at him.
“You have told me it is easier to hit your target if it comes along a straight path,” Alain said. “I stay here so the dragon will charge at me.” The creature was getting very close, eyes gleaming with hate, teeth the length of swords displayed as the dragon prepared to snap at Alain. “But I will have to move soon,” Alain said quickly.
Sergeant Kira’s rifle barked, and the dragon’s eye facing her suddenly went dark.
The dragon veered off, pawing at its injured eye, screaming with pain. Its powerful tail whipped about, cutting a swath through those legionaries who hadn’t managed to get far enough away.
Mari fired and the dragon’s head jerked back, blood coming from its mouth.
As it twisted in pain, Sergeant Kira, standing for a clean shot, put a bullet into its other eye.
The dragon screamed again and fell, twitching and jerking, taking out some more unfortunate legionaries with its death throes.
In the lull in the Imperial attack that followed as the legions waited for the dragon to finish dying, Colonel Teodor ran up, smiling. “Lady, once again you are a dragon slayer!” he told Mari.
Mari shook her head. “Not me. Sergeant Kira deserves the credit for this one.”
“She struck the deadly blows,” Alain agreed.
“Well done, Sergeant! You’re a hero of the Confederation! I’ll put you in for promotion to lieutenant.”
Sergeant Kira waved away the praise, ducking as an Imperial ballista projectile smashed into the wall just beneath the battlement. “I know no good deed goes unpunished, sir, but I’m happy being a sergeant. Becoming a lieutenant would be a demotion of sorts, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose it would.” The Imperials had recovered enough to begin launching flights of crossbow bolts again, so Teodor ducked behind the battlement along with the others. “But the field marshal will hear of this. Well done.” He hurried back toward the gate, staying low.
“Now every time a dragon shows up, they’ll call on me, won’t they?” Sergeant Kira said, aiming and firing. Alain saw a Mage fall in the distance and felt him cease.
“Yes,” Mari said. “Welcome to the club.” She looked at Alain. “I guess you’re right. The Mage Guild elders have decided that you are still a danger despite your love for a shadow.”
Alain tried to feel for more Mage activity and felt none. “Mari, something has changed. Many Mages have died here and accomplished little. Prince Maxim has seen these things, as have his legionaries. They know that Mages can be killed more easily than they guessed. And they know that you and I still live despite the anger of the Mage elders.”
“Do you think Maxim will move against his own Mage allies?” Mari asked.
“I think that if the elders at Dorcastle have any real wisdom they will not linger here.”
“Doesn’t that give us better odds. Sir Mage?” Sergeant Kira asked.
“We still face the legions and the Mechanics Guild,” Alain said.
The harsh brass horns of the Imperials sounded again, this time followed by a deep roar from thousands of throats. A solid wall of Imperial soldiers moved forward against the main gate, shields forming an interlocked barrier to the fire of the defenders. Among them, another siege tower lurched forward, pushed and pulled by hundreds of legionaries protected by their comrades’ shields. A storm of crossbow bolts augmented by the fire of perhaps a dozen Mechanics Guild rifles fell in a deadly rain upon the defenders of the main gate.
“Looks bad,” Mari said to Alain. “There’s something odd about that siege tower.”
Alain nodded, having gotten the same feeling from watching it move. He rose enough to see the tower, and using the power still available behind the wall sent heat into it.
The hides protecting one side blackened and charred, but the tower did not burst into flame.
“It’s lighter!” Mari yelled as she aimed and shot a Mechanic with a rifle. “They stripped off as much of the wood from the structure as they could, Alain. Put your heat on one of the corners, where there are still beams in place. Kira! Get all the Mechanics with rifles!"
As Mechanic after Mechanic fell from the combined efforts of Mari and Kira, Alain focused again, angry that his first attempt had failed.
He sent heat onto the nearest corner of the approaching siege tower.
Flames burst to life, running up the edge of the tower and along places where other wood beams must still be in place. But the tower kept coming.
It reached the battlement, the ramp falling in the front to offer a path for the legionaries packed inside to race onto the wall.
Alain, upset that his spells had failed twice, placed heat in the center of the ramp even though the effort right after the other two spells left him weak and dizzy.
Flames raced over the surface of the ramp, but legionaries charged across it into a wall of shields and spears held by defenders. The two sides pushed and strained, each trying to force the other back. Crossbows on the top of the tower fired into the defenders, creating gaps as soldiers fell, while Confederation crossbows fired back into the Imperial attackers.
The struggle ended abruptly as the burning ramp came apart. The legionaries on it fell, dropping with despairing cries.
A moment later the fires spreading along the remaining structure succeeded in weakening the siege tower enough that it bent and collapsed into a pile of wreckage against the wall.
Ballistae on both sides continued firing, the Imperial projectiles all falling behind the wall now, aiming to strike the defender’s ballistae as well as supplies and the reserve forces waiting at street level. The bombardment from the defenders still fell among the massed legions, tearing holes in their tight ranks. Beneath the arcing fire of the siege machines, the legions and the defenders fought for the wall itself.
Scaling ladders were coming up all along the wall, the defenders trying to shove them off before legionaries could climb them and legionaries below striving to hold the ladders in place. “Alain!” Mari called. “Can you get that ram?”
“I am weary,” Alain told her, but he focused on the wooden structure being rolled toward the main gate. He put the best effort he could into it, and
flames began flickering along the largest wooden beams suspending the massive ram.
“Sergeant!” Mari called. “Those Mechanics! Don’t let them reach the gate!”
Alain saw a group of several Mechanics running forward, carrying another one of the bombs. Legionaries surrounded them, their shields raised to protect the Mechanics.
Mari fired and a legionary fell, exposing a Mechanic. Kira fired, and the Mechanic fell. Mari fired again. Another legionary. Kira fired. Another Mechanic.
Mari’s third shot produced a far different result.
A large explosion erupted from the center of the formation, annihilating the surviving Mechanics and blowing legionaries in all directions. The sound of the blast filled the area as the force of the detonation sent debris raining down. The Imperial assault faltered again as Mari stared, appalled. “How could a single hit have set off the bomb?” she asked. “One bullet hitting the casing shouldn’t have been able to detonate it…unless the explosive was old and unstable! The Senior Mechanics always wanted to keep junk like that in inventory rather than replace it because that was cheaper in the short run. Didn’t they care about sending Mechanics into battle with unstable explosives?” Mari paused, looking enraged. “Of course they didn’t care,” she answered herself out loud. “They weren’t the ones carrying it.”
As the Imperial assault paused in the wake of the explosion, Mari rested her rifle on the battlement, aiming at the distant figure of a Mechanic standing near some Imperial officers. “That has to be a Senior Mechanic,” Alain heard her whisper. She fired. The Mechanic fell.
With another burst of battle cries the legions rushed forward again, closing their ranks, cohort after cohort charging toward the wall. Alain thought there seemed to be an endless supply of scaling ladders as well as soldiers on the Imperial side. Crossbow bolts kept flying in clouds and Imperial ballistae launched their burdens without pause.
A soldier near Alain hurled some bricks down on the attackers, then fell back, a crossbow bolt in his throat. All up and down the battlement, the ranks of the defenders were thinning under the unrelenting barrage.