“I suspect,” Red Wallace said soberly, as they joined the rest of those in the courtyard in fleeing to the shelter of the nearby buildings. “That the emperor has just begun to make his reply.”
“Fire away. Keep blasting until dark, and then zero in on the fires, if there’s enough light to give you a target.”
“Aye, my lord,” replied Captain Trevor, the grizzled commander of artillery. If anyone had been more enraged than Jaymes by the loss of the two bombards, it was the gunnery officer. The emperor knew he would carry out his orders diligently and professionally.
The bombard was set up about a half mile south of the Stonebridge. From that distance, Trevor had calculated that the round stone balls fired by the gun could reach every part of Vingaard Keep, except the very tops of the high towers. And, as the gunnery captain had observed wryly, he didn’t need to strike the tops of the towers in order to bring them down.
Jaymes walked a short distance to his command post, which had been established in a travelers’ inn alongside the Apple Creek road. He passed through the main room, which, though filled with officers, was strangely silent. Jaymes did not desire the company of his men, not at that moment, so he made his way up the stairs. Several guards stood duty on the second floor, posted outside a suite of rooms where Lord Kerrigan’s two companions were imprisoned.
Jaymes continued up the stairs. A wide balcony ran the entire length of the third floor, and from there he could watch the bombardment. There were a few captains there, and they made way for him. None tried to initiate conversation as the emperor sat at a table and sent a serving maid down to the bar for a pitcher of ale. When she returned, Lord Templar trailed behind her, and when Jaymes gestured to a vacant chair, the young Clerist sat down.
“My lord,” he began, awkwardly. “The Vingaard messenger-the man you refused to see-brought an offer of surrender. Is it necessary to destroy the castle now?”
“I don’t intend to destroy the castle. I’ll be content with the destruction of those three towers.”
“But those towers are Vingaard Keep, lord! They have stood for centuries-even through the great battles during the War of the Lance! They’re landmarks on the plains, known to every Solamnic-knights and citizens alike. Are you sure you want to bring these great edifices down? The rebels must surely have learned their lesson! I implore you, Excellency, consider carefully the lesson your own people will take from this action.”
Jaymes looked past the Clerist and caught a glimpse of General Dayr engaged in intense conversation with his son, Franz. The older man seemed to be pleading; the younger was rigid, pale, his hands clenched into fists. Finally the captain stalked off but not before casting a venomous glance at the emperor. Jaymes met the look coldly, and was mildly surprised when the young captain didn’t immediately turn away.
Instead, Franz glared mutely for several long heartbeats, before finally stomping through the door leading inside.
Jaymes turned back to the Clerist Knight, the man whose magic rain had doused the fires and allowed at least one bombard to survive the surprise attack. The emperor shook his head firmly.
“Perhaps the rebels in Vingaard have learned their lesson, but that’s beside the point.”
“But why? How?” protested the priest.
“Because I intend to send a message to everyone, across all of Solamnia. Only when the towers are destroyed, and all have heard the news, will the people understand my will is law. I will brook no opposition, no dissent-and I will crush even a whisper of rebellion!”
He turned to look back at the castle and watched as another ball crashed into the middle tower. Already much of the stonework, and all of the glass, had been destroyed. The spire wobbled like a tall tree that had suffered an almost fatal blow from a woodsman’s axe. He was vaguely aware that General Dayr was watching the tower too, that the army commander’s face was contorted in grief.
Why couldn’t they understand? Were they blind?
Jaymes watched impassively as, a few moments later, the great spire leaned, swayed, and ever so slowly smashed down across the walls of the keep, raising a great cloud of dust and provoking screams of fear and dismay audible even from that distance.
Before the dust had settled, Captain Trevor had shifted his wagon, and the bombard began to chisel away at the second tower.
CHAPTER TEN
Smoke and dust churned through the courtyard of Vingaard Keep. The base of the ruined tower stood like a shattered tree trunk, rising barely higher than the castle walls, its jagged, irregular silhouette outlined against the sunset. Tons of stone had rained down. Walls and ceilings, furniture, doorways, and the great curving stairway, all were broken and scattered widely.
For a moment there was silence, an absence of sound rendered all the more eerie for the fact that it followed the loud pounding of the bombardment, and toppling of the spire.
Then a child started to cry, its plaintive sobs piercing the silence and magnifying the terror. A woman ran from the keep, across the courtyard to the storage barn. She knelt over a motionless form just inside the door and also began to wail.
“I’ve got to go across the bridge and talk to him myself!”
Blayne Kerrigan fought against hands that tried to restrain him, struggling against his sister. With a groan, he struck the stone wall.
“This is my doing, my fault!” he insisted. “I have to see the emperor-surrender myself so that the keep can be saved!”
“You can’t!” Marrinys declared, grasping him desperately. She had dark circles beneath her eyes, and tears streaked her cheeks as her body trembled under the fear and strain. “He’ll throw you in chains… or kill you-like he did with Father!”
“I can’t let this continue!” Blayne said, gesturing at the rubble that stretched across the courtyard. Two guards were escorting the wailing woman away from the barn. Limping figures emerged from the swirling smoke along the base of the keep wall, coughing; one fell flat, and his companion lifted him with a bleeding right arm. Everywhere the dust rose in choking clouds.
“I doubt that anything you say or do could stop him now,” Red Wallace declared, supporting Marrinys Kerrigan against her brother. The Red Robe wore an implacable expression. If Blayne was frantic and guilt ridden, he remained stern and aloof.
The trio stood under the shelter of an upper rampart with a clear view of the destruction. After less than two hours of bombardment-some fifteen shots from the massive cannon-the first tower had collapsed on a mostly empty courtyard, with part striking the outer wall, crumbling the stone parapet halfway to the ground.
The garrison had abandoned the wall in time, but there were still a few casualties from stones showering across the keep and breaking through the wooden or thatched roofs of living quarters.
Another shot boomed out, a ball sailing past the second of the great towers. It was a poorly aimed shot, but it wouldn’t take long for the gunners to correct the distance and begin to pummel the second spire. It would start with the next shot, or the one after that. Both of the remaining spires had been evacuated.
Blayne drew a breath and forced himself to speak calmly even as he disengaged his sister’s hands from his arms.
“What else can I do?” he asked bluntly. “He’s doing this because I dared to attack him, I know it.”
“You must escape from here, and attack him again-as soon as you can!” Marrinys urged, showing a steely determination that Blayne hadn’t realized his sister possessed. “Meanwhile I, myself, will go out and talk to the emperor, offer our capitulation-again-and try to persuade him to stop this senseless destruction.”
“You?” Blayne asked, his voice choked by a tangle of gratitude and shame. “I can’t let you-”
“She’s right, yes, it’s the only thing to do,” Wallace interjected, once again taking the young woman’s side. “Let your sister appeal to his mercy. You need to get away from here; you know we’re not the only ones who think
