By the time they had scrambled over the debris, no one was else was visible in the extremely small range of vision offered by the night and the storm. “This way, right?” Mari asked Alain.
“Yes.” The training of a Mage acolyte, often cruel and brutal, had left Alain with an ability to concentrate even under the worst circumstances. He was certain that south still lay in the direction that Mari had pointed.
They had to run around more debris, but as they reached the open street again they found themselves in the midst of a large group of soldiers hurrying south. Alain’s sense of relief died as he realized that his foresight was nearly screaming a warning of danger.
He peered closely at the nearest soldiers, then grabbed Mari and put his lips close to her ear. “Mari! These are Imperials!”
Mari’s intake of breath was so loud that Alain feared she had attracted their attention. How could they break contact with the Imperials, who were rushing toward one of the same gates that the retreating defenders were trying to reach? As Alain tried to think of an answer, he knew that the most important thing was to avoid being noticed—
Mari’s yell pierced the night. “Halt! Who is in charge of this unit? Halt!”
The tones of a Mechanic being as arrogant as a Mechanic could be worked on legionaries drilled to obedience. The Imperials stumbled to a halt.
One came shoving his way through the ranks toward Mari and Alain. Alain saw that Mari had crossed her arms in such a way that one hand covered her armband of the New Day, and he quickly did the same, stepping back so that he could not be clearly seen in the murk of the night and the storm.
“Who the blazes gave that order!” the Imperial roared.
“I did!” Mari roared back. “Who the blazes are you? What unit is this?”
For centuries, commons had been forced to obey Mechanics. For centuries, Imperial soldiers of the legions had been trained to respond to authority with obedience. In the middle of the dark, rain-lashed street, the legionary commander reacted in the only way the product of that history could. “Centurion Markel, First Cohort, Twentieth Legion.”
“Why are you running in the wrong direction?” Mari demanded, still maintaining her angry, arrogant Mechanic attitude. “The next wall is that way!” She pointed down a large intersecting side street just visible through the gloom.
“That way? But, Honored Mechanic—"
“You got turned around in the dark!” Mari shouted at him. She held up her far-talker. “This tells me the way to the gate and it is that way. This part of the city is designed to trick invaders by leading them in circles. Didn’t you get briefed on that? The gate is that way! Hurry! Tell any other units you encounter who are running the wrong way!”
Better men than the centurion would have been fooled by Mari’s performance and the brandishing of a mysterious Mechanic device, Alain thought. The centurion hastily saluted. “This way! Fast!” The Imperials took off through the storm down the side road.
Mari watched until the last legionary had passed, then reached to grab Alain. They ran.
“It might not take them long to realize I sent them down a road that runs parallel to the walls,” Mari gasped. “But at least we slowed them down.”
“You are amazing,” Alain said, resolving again to learn what “parallel” meant.
“No, I’m just scared out of my mind.”
The quality of the rain and the wind and the darkness changed, telling them that they had run out into the open area before the sixth wall. More figures loomed ahead out of the rain. “What unit?” Alain called, wanting to know before they got among the soldiers this time.
The reply came in the welcome accents of the Confederation. “Elements of the Third, Sixth and Seventh Regiments. Friend or foe?”
“Friends!” Mari shouted in reply.
“What unit are you from?”
“None of them! I’m in charge!”
They reached the friendly soldiers, who were moving back toward the sixth wall while trying to maintain a defensive line facing north. “It’s the daughter! How did you get through the Imperials?”
“I told them to go away,” Mari said, her breathing rapid. “This includes the Third Regiment? Is Captain Niklas here?”
The reply took a moment. “Lady, we lost Captain Niklas part of the way back. Imperials came charging at us. He took command of a rear guard and told the rest of us to run.” The woman speaking hesitated, her voice breaking. “They couldn’t have made it. None of them. They held off the Imperials for us.”
“All…all right,” Mari said. “We honor their sacrifice by continuing the fight.”
They reached the gate in the sixth wall and rushed inside. Alain tried to see how many soldiers were with them. Elements of three regiments, someone had said. That should be a few thousand soldiers. But he could see only a few hundred.
The soldiers at the gate turned to Mari. “Lady? Should we shut the gate?”
“What?”
“You are in command,” Alain reminded her in a low voice that barely carried over the sounds of the storm.
Mari did not answer him but ran to the gate, looking out into the dark, the rain drumming on the rock pavement and wall. “Is there anybody else out there?” Mari asked, her voice tight.
“We…we don’t know, Lady. Maybe.”
Alain stood beside her, looking and listening.
A single figure in Confederation uniform wavered out of the gloom, staggering through the gate. “Is there anybody behind you?” one of the soldiers demanded of him.
“We got hit. Imperials everywhere. I couldn’t tell. I…” The lone soldier’s voice trailed off.
“Lady?” the soldiers at the gate asked with increasing urgency.
Alain wondered if he was hearing the rhythmic pounding of the boots of soldiers in formation growing closer. Those would have to be Imperials. Did he hear them? Or was it his imagination creating an illusion of imminent danger?
A half-dozen cavalry rode of out the storm, their worn-out mounts blowing clouds of breath through the wet air. “I think we’re the last,” one said. “I don’t know. It’s a mess out there. I don’t know.”
The foot soldiers looked to Mari for orders.
“Close the gate!” Mari said, walking backwards. Alain touched her shoulder and felt tension making the muscles rigid. “Close it!”
Alain stood with Mari as the gate swung ponderously closed and the soldiers fastened the locking bars across it one by one. “There was probably no one left outside,” he told Mari.
“We don’t know that,” she said in a toneless voice. “We don’t know how many I might have just locked out and left to the Imperials.” Mari turned again, slowly. “You,” she ordered a soldier. “Find Field Marshal Klaus. Tell him this gate is closed, and that Mage Alain and I are here.”
“Yes, Lady.” The soldier trotted off into the storm, wavering from exhaustion.
Alain looked around at the troops who had made it from the prior wall, seeing them standing about. “Find your commanders,” he ordered. “The senior survivor in each regiment. Get organized.”
“I want one regiment to stay down here to hold the gate,” Mari said. “The Sixth. The Third and the Seventh get up on the wall with me.”
“Yes, Lady.” Given clear instructions, the soldiers got into motion, dividing into their units.
“Shall we go up?” Alain asked Mari.
“Does it still matter?” she said almost too low to hear.
“Yes. Are you hurt?”
“Not yet. Let’s go. Thanks for helping me with those orders. I’m a…little worn out.”
They scrambled up the rain-slick steps, the storm continuing to pelt them. Alain helped Mari across the worst stretches until at last they reached the battlement and stared out into the night for signs of the Imperials.
Lieutenant Bruno came down the battlement, gasping with relief when he saw Mari. “All gates are secure, Lady, though it was close getting them shut before some of th
e Imperials reached them. Field Marshal Klaus is feeding in the last reserves. The Imperials haven’t made any attempt to assault this wall yet. They’ll probably wait for daylight.”
“Thank you,” Mari said.
Alain was not surprised that she said nothing about her role in confusing and delaying the Imperials. Respecting her wishes in the matter, he also stayed silent.
Bruno left, and Mari sat down heavily. Alain helped her against the battlement and sat with her, their backs against the stone of the sixth wall. As he slowly recovered from the strain of the most recent escape, Alain noticed something about Mari that caused him increasing concern. She sat next to him, their shoulders touching, her rifle between her legs, one end resting on the stone and the other slanted upwards toward the enemy. She had her hand cupped over the open end to keep rain from getting in. Her breathing was calming, but Mari did not say anything, instead staring straight ahead. Even in the darkness with the rain still falling, Alain could tell that her expression was oddly lacking in feeling.
Alain had never forgotten his first impressions of Mari, how the open intensity of her emotions had been almost painful to someone used to dealing with other Mages, who hid any feelings that still existed inside. Mari was acting oddly Mage-like now, though, her face offering no clue to any emotions.
“Mari?”
“Yes.” Her voice, too, lacked feeling. It came out listless, not just tired but as if every emotion had been wrung from it.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not hurt. I told you that.” The words carried no force and were swiftly absorbed in the drum of the rain as it fell on the stone around them.
“What is wrong?” Alain pressed, striving to put as much worry as he could into his own voice. “You had to give that order. You had to close the gate.”
“I know.”
“If you had not diverted that cohort, the Imperials might have fallen on the defenders here before they could close the gate.”
“I guess.” She turned her head, her eyes searching him but the darkness hiding any feelings. “I’m just…not sad. Just tired. Sorry it’s over.”
“What is over?” He gestured over his shoulder to where they could hear the muffled sounds of the Imperials reaching the area before this wall in growing numbers. “Hopefully the rain will hinder the legions enough that they will not try again before dawn.”
“I hope we still win, Alain.” Mari leaned her head back so the rain was falling on her face, dripping off like a torrent of tears. “But I won’t make it. It’s over for me.”
He felt cold inside. “Why do you say that? My vision did not guarantee such a thing. The elder said as long as I remained with you there was hope. I am here. There is hope.”
She shook her head slightly, looking past him. “I can feel it. A person gets born with just so much luck, Alain. I must have born with an ocean of it to get this far.” Mari sounded a tiny bit wistful, but otherwise emotionally numb. “So many others have died. But not me. And it’s gone. I can feel it.” She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes against the rain falling on them. “Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
“Mari,” Alain said through growing desperation, “you will not die. Do not speak that way.”
“Too much, Alain. Too much hatred, too much fighting…death…I can’t—" She stopped speaking for a moment. “Do you remember the land north and west of Pacta? That spot not far from the ocean?”
“Yes,” Alain said, hoping that Mari was about to speak of a more hopeful subject.
“That would be a nice place to live. I know you would like it there. When this is all over, you should go there, and build a nice house, and listen to the ocean. When you hear it, think of me.” Her voice sounded listless again, devoid of hope or fear or anything else but acceptance of fate.
He could not reply for a moment, distress blocking his throat, but managed to get some words out. “I will think of you there, because both of us will be there. I will see you and I will think of you.”
She shook her head slightly again, keeping her eyes closed. “We’ve only got a little time left together. Let’s not argue.”
Thunder rumbled again off to the left, lightning flaring inside the low clouds.
“I will not accept that it is hopeless,” Alain said. “I will save you, or I will die trying.”
“No, you mustn’t do that.”
“I will not leave this place alive unless you are with me,” Alain said.
“No!’ Mari’s voice was regaining some feeling. “Stop being unfair.”
“I will not leave you behind,” Alain said, knowing that she would hear her own vow not to leave others behind echoed in that.
“I’m not leaving by choice, Alain,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “Why does everyone think I can do this? How could anyone keep trying? Don’t push me. I can’t handle it anymore. Let’s get some sleep. Stay close.”
He did not think she actually slept, and he could not sleep, his shoulder touching hers, trying to will confidence back into her. Why could he not do that? Why would such a spell not work? Why would no spell work on Mari? She was real. He was as certain of that as he was of his own reality. Why could he not use the power of the illusion to help her?
He feared that he might have only a very short time left to try to learn the answer.
* * * *
At dawn the Imperials came again.
During the night, as the rain kept falling and occasional growls of thunder rolled across the beleaguered city, Mari had felt her despairing acceptance of her fate shifting to something else. She still didn’t feel that her survival was likely, or even possible, but her determination to win, to ensure that her job was done no matter the cost, had grown to dominate her again. Yes, she might well die. Very likely would die. But she would not stop trying to win, because those she fought deserved to lose, had to lose, if the world was to have any hope of avoiding the Storm. If the sacrifices of those who had already died were to mean something more than a failed effort.
The rain still impeded her view, and the clouds allowed only a glimpse of the dawn’s light. But Mari could see enough. The numbers of the enemy had been much diminished, but the attacking legions still filled the area before the sixth wall. To either side of her, the battlements were still occupied by defenders, but their ranks were thin in places. Behind them, on the ground, only small formations remained as reserves to reinforce threatened sections of the wall or deal with Imperial penetrations of any gates.
The Imperials had begun rolling forward a ram to use against the gate nearest Mari and Alain.
Alain stood watching it for so long that Mari wondered if something was wrong. Nearby Confederation soldiers were watching him anxiously.
The ram burst into flame as Alain loosed his spell, legionaries abandoning the burning wreck in a spot where its death throes helped block further Imperial attempts against that gate.
Imperial ballistae had been moved forward to fire directly at the battlement. One erupted into flame as Alain struck.
Mari took careful aim and dropped another Mechanic, then a centurion, wondering if he might be the same one she had bluffed the night before..
She didn’t have much ammunition left.
As a soldier near her staggered and fell from the sword blow of a legionary trying to climb onto the battlement, Mari picked up a pike and shoved it into the legionary and onward to overbalance the ladder he had ridden up to the parapet.
The Imperials gained a toehold on the battlement to the left, only to have it wiped out by frantic defenders. They broke a gate to the right, only to have a few surviving Confederation ballistae slaughter the wave of attackers by launching projectiles directly into them.
The defenders threw back the first assault. Then the second.
They couldn’t hold the third.
Mari wasn’t sure if the retreat this time qualified as a rout. The only thing that saved the defenders, that allowed them to reach the seventh
wall and close the gates, was that the Imperials didn’t chase them as quickly as in the past. “They are tired, too,” Alain gasped. “They have taken awful losses.”
“We’re more tired than they are,” Mari said, leaning on the battlement, “and our losses have been awful as well.”
Alain didn’t deny that truth. But he did grasp her hand. “Live.”
“I’ll try.”
Mari thought it was past noon, but night was still far off. Before the seventh wall the legions were gathering to take the final barrier defending Dorcastle. Behind the seventh wall lay the rest of the city and the uplands leading to Danalee, now packed with refugees, and the heart of the Confederation, with Tiae beyond.
Mari sat once again with her back against the parapet, a tight feeling of despair filling her, hearing crossbow bolts and occasional bullets striking the wall, staring upward and outward at the looming overcast that had finally ceased to spill rain but still blocked the sun.
Her pack was empty. She had one clip of ammunition left in her rifle and one clip in her pistol.
Lieutenant Bruno came up the nearest set of steps, limping but still moving, his face set in lines of endurance. He saw Mari and dropped lower to come close to the battlement but out of sight of Imperial crossbows firing at anything that showed. “Lady Mari, Field Marshal Klaus has been wounded. He told me to tell you that everything we have left is on this wall. There are no more commands left to give except stand and die.”
“All right,” Mari said, not knowing how else to reply to such a thing. She looked down the parapet on either side of her, seeing the defenders huddled there, trying to protect themselves while gathering strength. The seventh wall was the shortest of all, and only that allowed the remaining defenders to occupy its length. They hadn’t been beaten yet, but they weren’t far from that point. They had fought wall by wall, watching their comrades die in ones and twos and dozens and scores until further fighting seemed useless. On the other side of the wall Mari could hear the legions marshalling, preparing to assault this last bastion. The Imperials knew this was the last wall. They could surely feel victory waiting for them. They only had to take this wall and then their sacrifices would have meaning and be crowned with the greatest success in the history of the Empire.