A fresh unit of defenders came up the stairs, spreading out to cover part of the battlement and joining the fight with enough enthusiasm to hurl back the legions again.
“Lady? Do we have more bullets?” Kira asked.
“Here.” Mari passed two of the clips to Alain, who passed them on to Kira. “How are you, my Mage?”
“Recovering,” Alain said.
“Our ammunition won’t last if we keep firing it at this rate.” Mari set down her rifle and started picking up rocks and bricks from the nearest pile, throwing them down at the attackers.
Alain got back to his feet and joined in, finding some satisfaction in using such a simple weapon. Despite their upraised shields, the legionary ranks shivered under the downpour of heavy objects. The wave of attackers briefly receded, then came on again to meet another deadly hail of bricks and stones. As the shield walls broke, some of the defenders began grabbing spears from the nearby baskets and hurling them downward as well. Even if the spears only lodged in shields, their weight dragged down those shields, leaving legionaries exposed to other weapons.
But the Imperial barrage and assaults on the wall kept claiming defenders, who had to expose themselves to the hail of crossbow bolts and the occasional Mechanic bullet. More and more fell, while healers raced from place to place on the parapet, trying to save defenders who had not yet died from their injuries.
Alain saw a Confederation soldier fall with a crossbow bolt in one arm, then stagger up and continued hurling bricks using his remaining good arm until a second bolt lodged in his chest.
The ladders began rising against the wall again.
Alain stood beside Mari as she picked up her rifle once more. He saw a spot not far down the battlement where the ranks of defenders were much diminished, and put enough power and his own strength into another heat spell that caused the scaling ladder at that point to catch fire.
More reinforcements came up the stairs to join the fight.
Mari fired as more ladders thudded onto the top of the parapet. Defenders with pikes and spears once again shoved them off, some of them falling to legionary bolts, spears, and swords.
More ladders, legionaries swarming up them. Alain heard the dull boom of battering rams at the main gate. He saw that the defenders had poured more oil down on the attackers but that a hail of crossbow bolts was killing every soldier who tried to toss a torch down into it.
He placed heat upon the oil, seeing flames leap high and spread rapidly, the legionaries falling back from the inferno as Alain leaned on the battlement, exhausted for the moment.
Mari drew her pistol and aimed as a ladder came up nearby. Too weak to help, Alain could only watch as, aiming and firing carefully, she put a bullet into each legionary as they came up the ladder, replacing the clip in a few quick motions when the pistol emptied, then sighting in again and repeating the process.
Two defenders with pikes shoved the ladder back so that it fell among the attackers.
Mari knelt behind the battlement as she reloaded again. “How are you?” she asked Alain.
“Very tired. I have cast many spells.”
“Don’t exhaust yourself,” Mari ordered. “Do you hear me? You have to be able to walk.”
The attack paused as the legions reformed and brought up more ladders. Young auxiliaries scurried the length of the battlement, carrying water and food for the defenders.
Alain looked upward as he chewed some soft jerky without tasting it. The sun had risen high enough to be mostly obscured by the clouds, and smoke from the new fires set behind this wall was drifting high overhead, further darkening the sky. “It is nearly noon,” he said.
“It feels like we’ve been fighting for a full day already,” Mari said, her voice raw and weak. “I’ve got to stop yelling so much.” She pointed out across the area behind the second wall. “Can you see? The Imperials are setting fires all over the place, except around the rail yard. They’re trying to keep from damaging it with their bombardment.”
“If you do the thing you planned for, blowing up the locomotive creature, that will damage the Mechanic rail yard.”
“Yes, it will.” Mari ran one finger across a slash in the arm of her jacket. “That one was close.”
Alain held up the sleeve of his robe, showing off a hole and two rips. “We have been lucky.”
“A lot of others haven’t,” Mari said, watching a badly wounded soldier being carried by on a stretcher. “If we’ve lost this many, how badly must the Imperials have been hurt already?”
Field Marshal Klaus came up the stairs, speaking with some of the defenders. He paused by Mari. “It has been going well, Lady,” he told her.
“This is well? Really?”
“Yes.” Klaus gazed along the battlement. “Some battles are quick, and go to the cleverest. Other battles are long, and go to whoever has the most endurance.”
“My Mage says he thinks Prince Maxim may be fed up with the Mage Guild.”
“The Mage Guild has done more damage to their supposed allies than they have to us,” Klaus agreed. “Do you mean the Imperials might break their alliance with the Mage Guild?”
“I mean they may attempt to break the Mage Guild,” Alain said. He stopped speaking, sensing something that he had trouble understanding. “The elders are angry. I have never felt elders reveal such emotions so clearly.” He rose up, looking to the north. “The Mages move, that way, and my sense of them grows fainter.”
Klaus peered toward the Imperial lines. “West and north? They’re heading back toward the waterfront. Will they leave?”
Alain thought about the question before replying. “I do not believe so. While their anger must be directed at the Imperials, the Mage elders also do not want the Mechanics to be able to claim sole credit for an Imperial victory if such a victory occurred. They will remain.” He tried to remember everything he had ever seen or learned about the elders who controlled the Mage Guild. “They would never admit to pride, but I believe that the elders suffer from it and let it guide their actions. So they withhold assistance, thinking that the Imperials will come crawling to them begging their aid once more.”
“Pass that word around,” Klaus ordered Lieutenant Bruno. “The Mage Guild should be out of the fight for a while. Where is Kaede?”
“Down on the left.”
“Make sure she helps in letting everyone know that we’ve caused the Mages to withdraw. No other commons can claim that sort of achievement against Mages.”
“How are we looking for reserves?” Mari asked.
“Still doing well,” the field marshal replied. “We’ve had a harder time repelling the siege towers at other parts of the wall, but the Imperials have yet to gain a lodgment. The bombardment of the areas behind the wall has been intensive enough that I’ve started pulling back a lot of supplies and other assets behind the third wall, where the Imperial ballistae can’t keep hammering them.”
“Good,” Mari said. “Anything else?”
Klaus knelt down next to her, speaking in a voice so low that only Alain and Mari could hear. “I’m concerned about pressure on the left. I’ll be going there next myself to see things personally.”
“Should Alain and I shift positions to there?”
“We can’t afford to do that, Lady. The Imperials are still throwing their strongest efforts against the main gate. I’m going to shift some of the surviving Tiae rifles down to the left. That will not only give the troops there a morale boost but also offer a means to pick off Imperial leaders in that area.” Klaus paused, betraying worry to Alain’s eyes. “They’re pushing harder than I expected, Lady. We must be facing every legion the empire has, just as that one report claimed, and they keep coming regardless of losses.”
“We need to hold until my army gets here,” Mari said.
“I wish I knew how long that would be,” Klaus said. “Do you desire that I receive approval from you before ordering any more withdrawals?”
“No. I’m not in a posit
ion to see the big picture. I have confidence in you, Field Marshal, and have no doubt of your resolve. When you think we need to pull back,” Mari said, “give the order to withdraw.”
“Thank you, Lady.” Klaus stood, but remained crouched to avoid the occasional flights of crossbow bolts coming from the Imperials even during this lull in the assault. “I’ll check on the left.”
“He is more worried than he showed,” Alain murmured to Mari once the field marshal had departed.
“Act confident,” she told him. “Everyone is looking to us.”
“They look to you.”
“No. They watch you, too. You’ve impressed them.” Mari’s head jerked about as a boom sounded from the direction of the Imperials. “That wasn’t a rifle.”
Alain stood alongside her, feeling the wall shudder from the shock of an impact. Mari had her far-seers to her eyes, trying to see through the drifting clouds of smoke cloaking the battlefield as a result of the fires burning behind the second wall. “It’s an artillery piece, Alain. Mechanics Guild equipment. They must have off-loaded it from one of the ships.”
“A weapon like Alli’s big guns?”
“Not nearly as good as Alli’s, but good enough to be dangerous if we don’t do something about it.”
Alain heard another boom, this time seeing a flash of light that marked the gun’s position. But he could see little else. “Where are the…shells?”
Mari shook her head. “I can’t see them. They might be behind that wall next to the gun. Maybe the Mechanics Guild has figured out you can hit whatever you can see. Or maybe that’s just a coincidence. Sergeant Kira?”
“Lady?”
“Can you see the Mechanics around that gun?” Mari asked as the weapon fired a third time.
Kira squinted. “Yes.”
“What do you think? That’s a long shot.”
“I can try.” Kira rested her rifle on the battlement, aiming.
Alain watched for other dangers. The legionaries were busy regrouping and resupplying, leaving this fight to the Mechanics, but crossbows still fired at targets visible on the battlement. Little of Sergeant Kira showed, but Alain saw a group of Imperial crossbows clearly aiming her way.
He was rested enough to risk a heat spell. Alain imagined the heat above his palm, then thought it onto a crossbow near the center of the group.
The crossbow burst into flame and shattered, throwing burning fragments and splinters in all directions. The group of crossbows scattered.
Alain had barely turned his attention back to Sergeant Kira when the crash of her rifle sounded.
A long pause, while Mari looked through her far-seers.
“You got one!” she told Kira. “What a shot!”
“What are the others doing?” Alain asked.
“Loading again.”
Kira didn’t reply, aiming once more.
Another crash of a shot, another pause.
“Must have missed,” Mari said.
“I won’t waste the next one,” Sergeant Kira vowed.
The Mechanic gun fired at almost the same moment as Kira’s third shot.
“You got another!” Mari called as the wall shuddered from another hit from the Mechanic gun. Alain saw her squint again. “What’s that?” she wondered.
“Ballista projectiles,” Kira said. “Our own ballistae are targeting the Mechanic gun.”
“Looks like the gun crew has decided that survival is more important than following orders from the Senior Mechanics,” Mari said. “They’re running. Oh, blazes. Here come the Imperials again.”
The harsh notes of the Imperial brass horns signaled the charge, and another wave of attackers came against the wall.
Alain tried only to strike at targets worth a spell. There seemed to be far too few of those and far too many individual legionaries and scaling ladders. He brought out his long knife and used it as legionaries came up one ladder, fighting and killing with the emotionless skill taught to Mage acolytes. He kept his expression Mage-dead as he fought, seeing how that sight unnerved the legionaries he confronted.
Another lull, the sun far down in the west. Alain saw Mari counting the remaining ammunition and shaking her head. “Once I resupply the Tiae rifles,” she said, “we’re going to be—"
“Lady!” Lieutenant Kaede, a large bandage on one wrist, ran up and crouched nearby, breathing heavily. “All of the Tiae rifles on the left are dead. I’ve been sent to get the rest and bring them there.”
“How did—?” Mari began, looking stricken.
“Crossbows, swords, and two died when an unlucky Imperial ballista projectile struck the battlement where they fought.”
“Yes, go ahead and—"
Trumpets sounded on the left. Lieutenant Kaede grimaced. “Too late. The Imperials have a foothold on the wall.” She paused as more trumpets called their message. “We’ve lost the secondary gate. The field marshal has ordered a withdrawal to the third wall.”
Alain got to his feet, feeling weak from the effort he had expended all day, as the Imperials facing the main gate cheered and launched another assault. “They seek to pin us here,” he told Mari. “Until our retreat is impossible.”
“Discourage them,” Mari told Alain. “Give it everything you’ve got.”
He sent a rapid series of heat spells out, setting fire to several scaling ladders and throwing the assault into confusion. But the effort left him unable to stand, shaking as he clung to the battlement.
Sergeant Kira rejoined them. “We must go, Lady.”
“I need your help,” Mari told her. “Mage Alain can’t walk on his own. Help me with him.”
Kira stared. She turned long enough to fire a shot that dropped a centurion trying to get the assault going again, then turned back to Mari. “Lady? I’ve never touched a— He’s a soldier, isn’t he? Like me.”
“Yes, he’s a soldier, Sergeant,” Mari said. “Help him like you would any other.”
Kira got under one of Alain’s shoulders while Mari supported the other, the two nearly carrying him down the stairs among the other retreating soldiers.
“This must be the first time your Mage has been carried by two women,” Kira gasped as they ran.
“No. It’s the second,” Mari told her. “I think he does this on purpose sometimes so women will carry him.”
“Not really,” Alain corrected, still trying to get his strength back, “but that is a good idea.”
“Quiet, Alain. Save your strength.”
They had reached street level when Imperials began flooding onto the battlement of the second wall, bellowing cries of triumph as the last of the Confederation rear guard either fled or fell. One legionary with more speed than sense raced down the stairs toward them. Alain saw Mari use her free hand to draw her pistol and fire, knocking down the foremost enemy and slowing the charge of the others.
“I can walk,” Alain gasped. Sergeant Kira stepped back as Alain found his feet. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Anytime, for a comrade in arms,” Kira said, turning to fire and drop the nearest Imperial officer.
“We need to go by the Mechanic train yard,” Mari yelled at Sergeant Kira. “Tell Colonel Teodor.”
“Yes, Lady!”
They ran past a solid formation of reserves ready to slow the Imperial advance, onto a street crowded with other defenders falling back. Alain, remembering that Field Marshal Klaus had sent most of the ballistae and wagons behind the third wall already, saw only foot soldiers and cavalry on this street, the horses shying from the burning structures on either hand.
Alain, still very tired, barely kept up with Mari as she ran back to the Mechanic rail yard and the locomotive creature she had worked on the night before. Sergeant Kira and a number of other soldiers from the Third Regiment stayed with them until they reached the rail yard. The guards that had been set around the rail yard were already gone, doubtless having joined the retreat.
“Wait here,” Mari ordered Sergeant Kira and the other
soldiers from the Third Regiment. Alain stayed with her as Mari ran to the locomotive creature she had prepared the night before and leaped into the back. “I need heat, Alain! Inside here!”
He looked, seeing a metal door standing open, darkness beyond. An oily smell came from it. Despite his weariness, Alain created the illusion of enough heat to set fire to oil, grateful that unused power remained here away from the wall. Once he thought the heat was strong enough, he imagined it inside the door, and saw flames suddenly erupt.
Mari slammed shut the door, making small adjustments to the controls, then paused to rest one hand on the creature. “I’m sorry.”
She jumped down, Alain steadying her. Mari hesitated again, looking toward the second locomotive creature. “Keep your head down, Betsy!”
He urged Mari into motion again, out of the rail yard to where Sergeant Kira and other soldiers waited. For the first time, Alain noticed that one of the soldiers carried Mari’s banner from the second wall. The entire group headed back to rejoin the retreating columns, while Alain worried about whether this side-trip had delayed them too much.
“Heating up the boiler that fast will crack the boiler lining,” Mari said breathlessly to Alain. “But since I’m going to blow up the boiler, that doesn’t really matter.”
“How long do we have?” Alain asked.
“Long enough,” Mari said.
When they reentered the main street they found one of the rear guard formations falling back quickly and joined in their retreat.
Confederation cavalry came out of a side street and charged at the Imperials rushing forward, scattering the legionaries. The cavalry rode back to the foot soldiers and the entire group moved back together.
Alain saw the buildings on either hand give way to the open area before the third wall. He could see defenders already on the battlement of the third wall, and ranks of pikes and crossbows protecting the gates as the last of the retreating forces streamed across the open ground and through the gates.
He staggered through the main gate alongside Mari, feeling incapable of any further effort and hoping he would not be needed again soon.
Mari stopped just beyond the gate, the soldiers around her stopping as well, watching as the formation outside the gate threw back a few assaults from tired, disorganized Imperial pursuers.