blood.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“We’re under attack!” He threw back the bolt on her door. “An hour after sundown they came out of the river! Warriors, giants with blue skin, just as you said!”
“Has the fortress fallen?”
“No! Axarandes led a counterattack and saved the troops trapped outside the walls. They’ve taken Brackenost, though. The village is burning.”
She emerged from her cell. “Where’s Gundabyr? He must be freed.”
Samcadaris took her down the passage and around the corner. When Gundabyr was awakened and the situation explained to him, he got to his feet with a sigh, saying, “First they call us loonies, then they want us to fight for ’em. I tell you, the luck’s still with us, and it’s-”
“All bad,” finished Vixa impatiently. “Captain, we need weapons.”
“You shall have them,” said Samcadaris. He led them down the passage and up the stairs, grabbing a torch as he went.
As they ran, the dwarf muttered, “I don’t s’pose there’s a decent axe around here. I can’t fight with these fancy elf weapons.”
They emerged in the ground floor chamber of the north tower, the fort’s armory. The torchlight was reflected by racks of pole weapons, swords, shields, and various other implements of battle. Shouts and the clangor of battle filtered through the thick stone walls.
“Help yourselves,” said the Silvanesti, stabbing the torch into a handy wall sconce. “I must return to the wall!”
Vixa chose a burnished bronze breastplate and helmet. There was no time to bother with greaves, vambraces, or the like. She tugged the helmet on and wriggled into the heavy cuirass. Gundabyr turned up his nose at the bronze armor-it was much too large for him anyway-and went straight to a rack of polearms. He took out a six-foot halberd and cut several feet of its shaft away. Now he had a large but serviceable hand axe.
“Let’s go!” Vixa shouted, hefting a borrowed sword.
“Right behind you, Princess.”
They dashed into the courtyard. The bailey was littered with wounded and dying Silvanesti. Long torches planted into the ground gave the scene an eerie, shifting illumination.
The walls teemed with fighting elves. Fires blazed on the far side of the walls, casting the parapets into sharp relief. Mixed in with the Silvanesti defenders were disturbing numbers of tall, blue-skinned Dargonesti. Now and then an elf toppled from the wall, trailing screams in the smoky air.
“The gate’s where the fight will be hardest,” Vixa shouted over the din. “That’s where I’m going!” She ran for the entrance, Gundabyr right behind. They had to weave through the piles of wounded and dead.
They reached the front gate just as the fight was turning in favor of the defenders. General Axarandes was there, directing his troops with cool efficiency. He had solidified the defense. Vixa and Gundabyr pitched in, helping to shove the massive oak doors shut. When Axarandes saw them, he simply nodded.
Locking bars, made from entire tree trunks, were slid into place to hold the portal secure. Axarandes called for water and bandages for the wounded. There were no healers in Thonbec. They were usually brought in from Brackenost to tend the garrison’s simple needs. Unfortunately, Brackenost had been conquered. The burning village brightly illuminated the eastern wall.
Vixa, Gundabyr, and the general climbed to the battlements. Vixa was furious that her warning had gone unheeded. Many of these deaths might have been prevented if only the Silvanesti had listened.
“After dark, the first of the enemy emerged from the river and seized the docks.” Axarandes said. “Half the garrison was outside the walls, patrolling or on relieved duty. Before the alarm could be raised, the enemy were in the streets of Brackenost. They have an incendiary liquid that is difficult to extinguish.”
“Gnomefire,” Gundabyr said ruefully. “I’m afraid I gave them that.”
“Captain Dannagel was in the village and mustered what warriors he could to resist the enemy attack. They came out of the river all along the bank, hundreds of them. Dannagel died defending the open gate. I brought his troops in, and only barely managed to keep the invaders out, as you saw for yourselves.”
The Qualinesti princess shook her head as she stared down at the burning village beyond the wall. Of course the Dargonesti had come from the river! She’d told the Silvanesti they were a water-breathing race. But she cast these resentments aside. The objective now had to be the defense of Thonbec and Silvanost.
“Have you sent word to the Speaker?” she asked. Axarandes shook his head, and she quickly added, “Silvanost is their objective, General, make no mistake. You must warn the Speaker of the Stars to prepare for the defense of the city.”
To her disbelief, he said, “You are too rash, lady. The enemy has not taken this fortress. In truth, now that their surprise attack has failed, I don’t see that we have much to fear. I regret my lack of faith in your warning, but we are prepared now. A force of ten thousand infantry cannot have a siege train of the size necessary to reduce Thonbec. They might as well return to the sea now and spare their own blood.”
“That’s an easy thing to say,” Gundabyr remarked. “But you don’t know these blueskins the way we do. Coryphene didn’t come all this way just to give up. Rest assured, he has some plan in mind for your fortress.”
Axarandes regarded them for a minute. His aquiline features glowed in the light from the burning city. “Very well,” he acquiesced. “A courier will be sent to Silvanost. Would you two like the job?”
Vixa’s response was prompt. “No, thank you, General. I doubt they’d believe us any more than you did.”
He nodded, turned away. Vixa and Gundabyr remained, watching the fire consume the last of Brackenost.
Chapter 18
The night was not yet over.
After the fire in the village had burned itself out, bringing the darkness of a summer night back to the gray walls of Thonbec, Dargonesti crept out of the river again and massed on the riverbanks. Keen-eyed Silvanesti sentinels spotted them and sounded the call to arms on their trumpets.
First to the walls were the archers. The garrison of Thonbec consisted of fifteen hundred warriors, three hundred of whom were some of Silvanesti’s most skilled archers. Though night shrouded the lower slopes of the riverbank, the archers showered death on the attackers. Stung by the hail, a band of fifty Dargonesti tried to rush the gate. Only half made it to the top of the hill, and none made it to the gate. The survivors broke and fled back to the safety of the Thon-Thalas.
“Hurrah!” a young sentinel shouted from the parapet. “They can’t bear up under our arrows!”
“Not surprising,” Vixa said dryly. She was tired and cross, wanting to sleep but not daring to. “They’ve never faced arrows before.”
The sentinel said excitedly, “We should sortie and strike them! With a hundred swords we could-”
“-reduce the garrison by a hundred,” Samcadaris finished. “Back to your post, soldier.”
“The Dargonesti are just feeling out your defenses. They’ve never fought a land foe before,” Vixa explained.
Long after the moons set, mere hours before dawn, it became very quiet. Axarandes, fresh from a well- deserved rest, came to the battlements with the dispatch he’d prepared for the Speaker of the Stars. He asked Vixa to read it, to check for factual errors regarding the might of the Dargonesti. She approved it all, and he sealed it in a deerskin wallet. Axarandes called for a courier, the fastest runner in Thonbec. The importance of his mission was explained to him, and the courier was lowered by rope over the east wall. Silently, he raced away from the fort, vanishing in the trees.
“I hope he makes it,” Vixa murmured.
