arrows, large stones, and hot oil were poured on the attackers.
“This is stupid,” Gundabyr remarked, when the latest report was brought back to the Quinari. “I thought the blueskins were smarter than this!”
“I don’t suppose they’ve ever attacked a walled city before,” Samcadaris mused.
“They’re getting a hard education,” the Speaker said grimly.
The attack continued for over an hour, during which the attention of every elf in Silvanost was fixed on Red Rose Gate, in the south.
Unbeknownst to them, Dargonesti warriors were stealing silently out of the muddy Thon-Thalas and gathering among the piers and docks on the city’s west side. Scaling ladders, knocked together from scavenged wood, were carried out of the water and readied at the base of the city wall. The army waited, poised for the signal. Coryphene’s point of attack was exactly halfway between two towers.
Coryphene himself surfaced, holding the hand of Queen Uriona. The sorceress monarch had never been above the water in her life, and she was fiercely excited by the experience. The air here was very different than what she breathed in her city every day. A myriad of strange smells filled her nostrils. She gripped Coryphene’s hand hard as she gazed up at the walls and towers of Silvanost.
“My city,” she whispered. “My capital!”
“Not yet, Divine One. Let me shed a little blood for you, then it shall be yours in truth,” he said.
She relinquished his hand. “Go! I will call on my powers to aid you!”
He slogged ashore. One thousand warriors, including his own sword-armed personal guard, were below the wall.
“Up ladders,” he said quietly. Brawny blue arms lifted the wooden structures. The movement of so many ladders could not escape notice. Sentries on the two flanking towers shouted alarms. Torches blazed from the battlement, exposing Coryphene’s troops.
“Up! Up!” he roared, waving his sword over his head. He still wielded Vixa Ambrodel’s Qualinesti blade. The topaz in its hilt flashed in the torchlight. “Now is the time! For Urione! For Uriona!”
In moments, the alarm reached the Speaker and the others at the Quinari Palace. Samcadaris threw down his marshal’s baton.
“A feint! All that nonsense in the south is a feint!” He shouted quick commands, and the waiting warriors fell into three columns. Vixa and Gundabyr found places in the fore, the dwarf vowing to make Coryphene pay for the death of Garnath, his twin.
Speaker Elendar performed the ritual blessings, as the columns began to move off. Once the warriors were gone, the Speaker dismissed the priests and servants hovering nearby. The square between the Quinari and the Tower of the Stars was empty save for himself. He removed a plain helmet from beneath his cloak and pulled it on.
“I’ll not sit by while others fight for my city,” he murmured.
After a glance at the pearlescent beauty of the Tower of the Stars, a sight which never failed to strengthen his soul, Elendar, Speaker of the Stars, great-grandson of Silvanos, stepped into the night, tightening the chin strap of his helmet.
Chapter 22
The ladders thumped against the parapet. Fewer than two hundred Silvanesti guarded this stretch of the wall. They sprang to arms and rushed to knock the ladders over. With sword and spear, the defenders pried one heavy ladder loose and shoved it backward. They cheered as Dargonesti went flying.
At that instant tiny globes of light appeared above each remaining ladder. These swelled rapidly until they were larger than an elf. When the Silvanesti tried to approach the ladders, an invisible force hurled them back. The light globes crackled and hissed. Other warriors shot arrows and cast spears into the fiery globes. These, too, were flung back at their owners, sometimes with fatal results.
When the first Dargonesti laid his hand atop the city wall, the globe protecting his ladder vanished with a thunderclap. He and his fellows poured onto the battlement and rushed the dazed defenders. In minutes all the globes were gone, clearing the way for the sea elves to gain the wall. Only one ladder had been upset. The other nine had done their jobs well, and the Dargonesti entered the city.
Uriona, standing on the shoulders of two of her servants, watched from midriver. She trembled violently beneath her mask, from emotion and the effort she had exerted to create the force spheres. Victory was hers-she could feel it!
Samcadaris’s columns were filing up the steps. Now and then bodies-blue-skinned and white-came hurtling back down. Vixa also pounded up the steps, Gundabyr on her heels. At the top of the long staircase, the wall was thick with fighting elves. The Silvanesti who’d been on the wall when Coryphene had first attacked had withdrawn to the two towers. The doors were shut and bolted. The Dargonesti had seized the wall; now could they hold it?
Vixa saw no Dimernesti this time. She faced only her old captors, and from the swords in their webbed hands, she knew they were part of Coryphene’s elite guard. Shoulder to shoulder with a dozen of Samcadaris’s fighters and the redoubtable Gundabyr, she would have taken on any foe. Like the dwarf, she had a debt to settle with the Lord Protector of Urione. He had taken too many lives-by this own hand and by his command.
There was no room for fancy swordplay. This was hack-and-slash fighting at its most brutal. Strength and stamina were what counted. Vixa traded cuts with a Dargonesti until his blade became entangled with that of the elf on her left. When he left himself open, Vixa ran him through. His place was taken by another warrior in green tortoiseshell armor. This one wielded a heavy Ergothian sword as easily as if it were a feather.
The Qualinesti princess gave ground. Gundabyr squeezed in and deflected the blue-skinned giant’s blows. The dwarf was not at his best. His wound made him stiff and clumsy. Vixa grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back.
“Thick-headed fool!” she yelled at him. “Your arm’s not sound! Get clear!”
“Don’t give me orders, your ladyship!” he shouted back. Their exchange was interrupted by the sea elf, making a renewed assault on Vixa. Gundabyr dropped his heavy axe and dove at the Dargonesti’s knees. Vixa leapt over the dwarf and whipped a roundhouse at the enemy. The sea elf, struggling with the dwarf, was unable to parry. He dropped down dead, his throat slashed by Vixa’s sword.
The Qualinesti girl felt herself fall as well. The parapet was slick with blood, and her foot slid out from under her. A forest of legs churned around her. Someone stomped on her hand, and she lost her grasp on her weapon. More blows, accidental and otherwise, rained on her ribs. She curled up to protect herself, spied Gundabyr’s axe, and snatched it up.
A stunning impact on her back rolled her over. Blearily, she saw a Dargonesti looming over her, sword upraised. She flung the axe at him. The flat of the blade took him in the face, and down he went. Vixa stood shakily. The Dargonesti, his face streaming green blood, was getting to his feet as well. Empty-handed, she ran at him and shoved. With a screech, he slid off the parapet, disappearing below.
Vixa had lost track of Gundabyr. A Dargonesti rushed her. She ducked under his sword arm, turned, and kicked his legs out from under him. Because of their height and unfamiliarity with dry land, the sea elves were somewhat clumsy. Their reflexes and balance were both affected.
She picked up the fallen sea elf’s sword. It was a sailor’s cutlass, streaked with rust. Just the thing for a mad melee like this! Yelling her war cry of family names, Vixa tore into the Dargonesti who were just getting off their scaling ladder. She slew one before he had time to defend himself, then felt a slash across her back. Her steel cuirass saved her life, but the end of the blade caught her shoulder. Stinging blood poured from her wound as she turned, seeing that the Dargonesti who’d struck her was still standing with his sword upraised. Before she could
