different companies; Paks had the chance to try a crossbow (at which she nearly cut off her thumb) and a short curved blade much like the one Saben had taken.
Day by day she grew to realize how much she had leaned on Canna and Saben—Saben especially. She found herself looking for his cheerful face in the meal lines, waiting for his comment when she came off watch—missing, increasingly, that steady pressure of goodwill she had always felt at her side. They had been together from the beginning. When she went to the jacks, she remembered the trench they had dug together her first night as a recruit—and cried again, knowing it was silly and ridiculous, but helpless to hold back the tears. It was impossible that he was gone, and gone forever. She had thought of her own death, but never of his—now she could think of nothing else.
She could not talk about it to anyone. She knew that Vik and Arne watched her, and almost hated them for it. She heard a Halveric ask Barra if she and Saben had been lovers, and did not know which was worse, the question or Barra’s scornful negative. She and Saben had shared everything but that: the early hopes and fears, the hours of work, the laughter, that final week of danger. Everything but love and death. For the first time, she wondered what it would have been like to bed him. It was something he had always wanted, and now there was no chance. But if she had—if it hurt more, to lose a lover—she shook her head, and went doggedly on with work she hardly noticed. Better not. She had never wanted to, and surely it would be worse to lose a lover. It was bad enough now.
For awhile she felt cool and remote, as if she were watching herself from a hilltop. Never care, came a whisper in her mind. Never care, never fear. But in the firelight that night, the concern in Vik’s eyes and Arne’s roused a sudden rush of caring for them. With it came the pain again, but she felt it as a good pain: as wrenching as the surgeon scouring a wound, but necessary. Fear came, too: fear for them. She looked at her own hands, broad and strong, skilled—she could still protect, with those hands. She said nothing, and the tears came again, but somewhere inside a tightness eased.
The city had been silent now for more than a week. No more taunts over the wall, no pots of hot oil, no stones. Heads showed above the battlements occasionally, and the gates were barred, but the enthusiasm of the defenders had gone. Paks wondered if they were going to surrender.
Late one afternoon, a trio of Sorellin militia rode into the siege lines from the north; in minutes messengers came to the Duke. Soon everyone knew that they had found a tunnel from the brigands’ hideout, where Canna and Saben had been found, into Rotengre. A small group of Rotengren soldiers had come out in their midst; now Sorellin controlled the forest end of the passage.
“That must be how the Honeycat meant to relieve the siege,” said Vik.
“And why he wanted live prisoners,” said Paks. “Once he had them in the city—”
“Yes. Ugh. I wonder where the Rotengre end is. If only we could use it.”
“With an attack on the walls at the same time. Yes—or if they’re all trying to escape that way, we could just sit there and take them as they come.”
“I’d rather go in,” Arne looked eager.
Paks grinned. “So would I. I never heard of a tunnel that long; I wonder who dug it and when.”
“The reputation this city’s got,” said Vik, “it may have been there since the walls were built. It would explain a lot of things about Rotengre.”
As dusk fell, the entire camp bubbled with speculation. They mustered after supper, and the Duke explained their plans. The Phelani would assault the wall, while the Halverics tried their ram on the north gate. Vladi had taken a couple of spear cohorts and joined the Sorellin militia for an assault through the tunnel. The remaining Sorellin militia would attack with their catapult and ladder teams. Cracolnya’s cohort would lead the Phelani assault, followed by Dorrin’s. These instructions were followed by a breathless wait in the dark.
Suddenly the Halveric’s ram battered at the north gate, and an outcry came from the gate tower above. Torches flared along the walls. As heads showed, the Duke’s bowmen let fly. Returning flights came out of the darkness to bristle in rampart and tent. Paks heard not only the regular crash of the battering ram, but the occasional stunning crack of the Sorellin catapult’s stone balls slamming into the wall itself. Horn calls and shouts from inside the city redoubled, loudest from the gate tower. Then Paks heard more distant signals, from the south side. She realized that the south gate, too, must be under attack.
Now, with others of Dorrin’s cohort, she stood at the base of the ladders as the specialists of the mixed cohort led the climbing teams up. These made it to the top before being seen, and secured the ladders as the first fighting teams came up. Paks, below, heard the scream of the Rotengre guard who first saw them, then a body slammed into the ground nearby. Those on the ladder surged upward. As soon as they could get footspace on the rungs, others followed.
“Keep your shields
Paks found the ladder harder than she remembered, as she tried to balance with her shield arched over her. By the time she reached the top, the Duke’s men formed two lines across the wall, protecting access for those still climbing. She was surprised to see green-clad Halverics coming off the ladders behind her companions, but had no time to think about it. She jogged up to join the line moving toward the gate tower.
Facing them were two lines of Rotengre guards in blue, and more ran from the direction of the gate tower. The Phelani advanced; the Rotengre lines retreated, even before making contact. When they pursued and engaged, the enemy still retreated, though their swordwork was excellent.
“Keep pressing ’em!” yelled Vossik. “They’ll break. Keep at ’em.” Even as he spoke, those on the inside of the wall tried to slip down a stair to the city below. Bowstrings twanged behind Paks; at least two fell from the stairs. Vossik told a party to hold the stairs against any assault.
Now they were close to the gate tower; the rear ranks of defenders turned and raced for the tower doors as a heavy fire of arrows struck the Duke’s men from an upper level. Several fell. Paks and the others threw up their shields and charged, trying to make the tower door before it was slammed against them. The remaining defenders went down under the charge; Paks raced through a gap to hit the closing door with all her strength. Instantly several of her companions were there to help, and together they forced the door open, battling past the defenders. More of the Duke’s men poured into the opening.
They had entered a small chamber that ran along the west side of the gate tower; two doors opened into a larger room where Paks caught a glimpse of the gate machinery before the doors slammed.
“We’ll need to get those doors down,” said Vossik. He had come limping in after the others, having taken a crossbow bolt in the leg. “And those plaguey bowmen are somewhere overhead, too.” They looked around, but saw no access to the upper level. They could feel the concussion when the Halveric ram hit the gates.
“How about that door we just took?” asked Vik.
“Good,” said Vossik. “Take it apart and see if it won’t make us some rams.” With four stout lengths of oak from the first door, they began smashing at the inner doors, a squad for each. All at once one of them splintered between the bars that held it, and they smashed the rest of the wood free and poured through. The expected line of crossbowmen met them; the first flight bristled in their shields. Before the bowmen could reload, the Duke’s men were on them, and they fell in a welter of blood that made the floor slippery. The remaining defenders, some two score, had no chance. As they darted toward the stair that led to ground level, the attackers cut them down. Vossik stopped them from following the few survivors downstairs.
“Wait. We need to get these gates open.”
“Here, sir.” It was a mixed-cohort man. “Just let me get to those pulleys.”
“Need any help?”
“Just a moment. Yes—here. Two of you do this—” he demonstrated. “And two over here, on this one.” They pushed on the windlass spokes; chains tightened and slid through great pulleys above and below. Beneath them, the heavy gate creaked open; they heard wild cheers from the Halverics. Meanwhile someone had identified the portcullis mechanism, and several were at work to raise the massive grate. Paks looked out the window that looked into the city. She could see torches in the street below and gleams of steel.
“Paks.” It was Artfiel, one of the new corporals Dorrin had named. She turned. “Take a squad and make sure the gate tower is secure on the east. I expect they’ve all fled into the city, but I’d hate to be surprised.”
Paks collected a tensquad and found a long narrow room on the east side: twin to the one they’d broken into on the west, except that here a narrow ladder led through a hole in the ceiling to the higher level. One of the bowmen scampered up this, to report no enemy above, and no one visible on the wall. Paks went back to Artfiel and he assigned a squad of archers to keep watch from the upper level; she took her own squad out onto the east
