And then they waited.
Shananara had insisted that the Kariens be given the opportunity to surrender. It was a condition of using her people to relay their messages back and forth between the Citadel and the armies coming to relieve them.
Damin took out his looking glass and focused on the Citadel as Tarja emerged through the main gate. Mounted beside him was a bearded Karien, one of Jasnoff's dukes, no doubt. Tarja let him take a long look at the forces arrayed against his men. The two men spoke at some length, the Karien gesticulating angrily, and then the duke wheeled his mount around and returned to the Citadel. Damin swung the looking glass up to the flagpole mounted over the gate. The white flag of truce was hastily pulled down and battle colours were raised in their place. A whoop of glee sounded along the Hythrun lines.
“It appears the Kariens aren't planning to surrender, my Lord,” Damin remarked to Almodavar with a grin.
“What a shame, Your Highness,” Almodavar said insincerely.
“Then I suppose we'd better go and kill them all.”
“That would seem to be the only option left open to us, Your Highness.”
Damin glanced over his shoulder. “Have the Harshini withdrawn?”
“They're clear of the field, Your Highness. They withdrew as soon as they saw the battle flags being raised.”
Damin nodded and passed his looking glass to an aide and unsheathed his sword. The sound of the Defender trumpets reached him faintly on the breeze and he raised his arm to lead his troops into battle.
The battle, once it got under way, was almost as bad as the one on the northern border. The Kariens were not acting under a coercion, but they were demoralised, hungry and leaderless. Their god was dead, their leaders held hostage in the enemy fortress. They put up a fight, certainly, but there was no need for strategy. It reminded Damin of quelling the riot that had stormed the gates of Greenharbour during the siege. All they did - all they needed to do - was draw inexorably closer, pulling an ever-tighter circle of steel around the Kariens until there was no escape and no quarter given.
The knights put up the best fight. Their code of honour would allow them no other course of action, but even they fell eventually to the unstoppable advance. By the time Damin thought to look up, bloodied and exhausted, he was surprised to discover the sun high overhead. The ground behind him was littered with more bodies than he could count, and in the distance the Saran River ran red as the Defenders splashed through its shallow waters to meet their foes.
Looking about him and realising there was nobody left to fight, Damin rested his sword across his saddle and looked up at the Citadel. The fortress seemed to glow, even in the bright sunlight. The archers on the walls had stopped loosing their arrows, as the only men within reach now were their own troops.
Then he heard another trumpet blare out and saw the battle colours come down, replaced with the plain blue flag that they had agreed they would hoist in the case of victory.
A cheer rose from the field, muted but heartfelt. Damin surveyed the battlefield, feeling strangely let down. Like the battle on the northern border it had been as much a cattle cull as it was a decent war. The only enemy worth fighting these days, he realised, were probably the Defenders, and he'd allied himself with them. Maybe he should have stayed at home, or planned to invade Medalon. Then at least he would have been guaranteed a decent fight.
“Your Highness? Prince Damin?”
He turned in his saddle to find a Defender riding towards him. “I'm Damin Wolfblade.”
The Defender saluted sharply. “Your Highness, the Lord Defender sends his compliments and requests that you join him in the Citadel.”
“Very well.”
“Would you happen to know where I could find the King of Fardohnya, sir?”
“Back that way,” Damin said, waving in the general direction of the command post some leagues distant. He was in no hurry to have Hablet join them in the Citadel. He wanted to speak to Tarja first. “He's in the command tent.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, Lieutenant!”
“Your Highness?”
“Once you've delivered your message to King Hablet, could you ask Lord Hawksword to fetch my wife and bring her to the Citadel, too?”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
The Defender galloped off towards the command tent and Damin turned his stallion towards the Citadel.
“You look like hell,” Tarja announced by way of greeting.
Damin smiled wearily as he dismounted, handing his reins to a waiting cadet. The boy led the stallion away cautiously. “Well, some of us have been out fighting, you know, not sitting here in the Citadel playing Lord Defender. How in the name of the gods did they talk you into accepting that job?”
Tarja grimaced. “It's a long story. You're wounded.”
Damin glanced down at his blood-soaked sleeve and poked at it curiously, then shrugged when he felt no pain. “Must be someone else's blood. Any chance you can find me a clean shirt before Adrina gets here? I
“She didn't really expect you to stay out of it, did she?”
“Who knows with Adrina,” he shrugged.
He followed Tarja up a broad set of sweeping steps to the front of an impressive building that looked vaguely like one of the temples in Greenharbour. Tarja pushed open the massive door and Damin stepped inside, gaping in wonder.
“The Temple of the Gods,” he whispered in awe.
“We prefer to call it the Great Hall,” Tarja said with a thin smile.
“I can't believe you left it so untouched.”
“We didn't. The Harshini Queen rearranged things a bit when she got here.”
Damin grinned at Tarja. “That must have been hard for your poor little atheist heart to cope with. Will you introduce me to the Queen?”
“Of course. She should be here soon.”
“And the demon child? I half expected her to be standing on the walls hurling lightning bolts into the enemy.”
Tarja's face clouded. “R'shiel has been asleep for days now.”
“Asleep?”
“She says she destroyed Xaphista.”
“Yes, well that would take it out of you, wouldn't it?” He slapped Tarja's shoulder to remind him he was joking. “You said she was asleep? Not unconscious? What do the Harshini say about her?”
“They don't seem to be worried.”
“Then neither should you.”
They walked the length of the Temple to where a long polished table had been set up in the shadow of the massive Seeing Stone. It would dwarf the one in Greenharbour. For a moment Damin wished he'd brought Kalan with him. She would have been awestruck to stand here in the fabled Harshini Temple of the Gods facing the Citadel's Seeing Stone.
As they approached the table, the Defenders on guard snapped to attention. Tarja sent one of them to find Damin a clean shirt as he pulled at the laces on his leather breastplate and lifted it over his head.
