Crusader

heavy on her shoulders, and it was seldom ever a bother.

“What has happened here?” Ryin Ayend stared around the foyer, the stone that had burst the window only moments earlier was still sitting in the Great Hall, in the midst of splintered tables.

“We are under siege,” Alaric answered him, crossing the distance between them and placing a hand on Ryin’s shoulder. “I am most pleased to see you, my brother, but unfortunately the news you bear will have to wait, unless you have anything life-threatening to tell us?”

“Not exactly,” Ryin said. “But I was sent back to let you know-”

Another thunderous roar filled the room as the entirety of Sanctuary quaked to the foundations. There was a moment’s respite from the fury and then the earth shook again so violently Vara was only just able to keep her footing. Others were not so lucky and landed on the floor in a heap.

“If I am not mistaken, we have just lost the southwest tower to a bombardment,” Alaric said, much more calmly than Vara felt.

“Lucky shot,” Vaste said, pulling himself to his feet. “There’s no way that was intentional, not with a catapult. Those things are hideously inaccurate.”

“You don’t have to be that accurate when you’re firing a ton of stone.” A voice whipped through the room and Vara saw Erith Frostmoor, a dark elven healer, cut down the stairs and take in the foyer in one glance. “I was on the battlements-we did lose the southwest tower, and it was a lucky shot, but the boulders they’re firing at us are bigger than any I’ve seen heaved from a catapult before. Two lucky hits and the tower came down, along with whoever was in it at the time.”

“Applicant quarters,” Vaste said. “Gods, that’ll be messy.”

“Healers,” Alaric said, looking to Erith and Vaste, “get to the wreckage of the tower and begin pulling the dead and wounded out. Any able-bodied warriors should join you. Rangers, I’ll need with me,” he said, voice tight, “along with anyone who can cast a spell. I believe it is time to give the dark elven host a taste of our fury.”

“Taste of our fury?” Vaste said with a frown. “That sounds awfully cheesy, Alaric. Why don’t you give them a taste of our bread and stew while you’re at it?”

“Because at this point our bread and stew are in a puddle on the floor of the Great Hall,” Larana whispered, so low only Vara heard her.

“Spellcasters,” Alaric said, “with me. All others, to your duties.”

Alaric was on the run, out the door and descending the great stone stairs that led to the grounds of Sanctuary. Green grasses of summer had grown in thick, and the sun was shining overhead as Vara ran across the grounds, a few steps behind her Guildmaster. It was a wide lawn, a massive open space in the land surrounded by Sanctuary’s curtain wall, big enough that it protected the enormous stables, a garden out back, a cemetery, an archery range, and other outbuildings that were not part of Sanctuary’s main structure.

The curtain wall was tall enough for them to repel a siege from, at least with archers and spellcasters and swords enough to fight off ladder-climbing invaders and siege towers. But not as tall as I would have made it, she thought. For this I would have preferred walls that stretched halfway to the sky, as can be found in Pharesia. Or a moat around the whole thing would be a wonderful defense, rather than simply letting them roll their damnable siege engines up to the wall and have at it. “What is our plan, Alaric?” she asked, wondering if she would catch the old knight’s attention.

“Their army is of little threat to us at present,” Alaric said. “But their catapults and siege towers present a slight problem. So we will deal with them.”

“A ‘slight problem’?” She looked at him in astonishment, but he did not turn back to acknowledge her, merely kept running toward the wall. A stream of others following his orders trailed closely behind and the smell of fire and smoke was strong the closer they got to the wall. “Alaric, they just sent the bloody southwest tower crashing to the ground! They launched a boulder into our foyer. If that is only a slight problem, then I fear the day that we face your definition of a major one.”

“Yes,” Alaric said, “I fear that day as well.”

They reached the wall, slipping into the interior of the heavy stone structure by means of a tower door. The wall was miles long and had passages with rooms and accommodations inside the towers that were placed at intervals along the length of it. Its thickness, with a solid mass of stone at the front, was able to stop most projectiles, but toward the interior facing, it made way for a corridor that spanned between the towers. Alaric started up a spiral staircase inside the tower, striding out into the bright daylight when he reached the top. Throughout, Vara followed on his heels, as close as she could keep up to the Guildmaster, who moved faster than his venerable appearance would have indicated he could. But then, she had long ago learned she should not underestimate Alaric.

When she stepped out into the sunlight on top of the wall, the roar reached her ears again, filling them with the sounds of thousands of voices. It was a cacophony of anger and fury coming from the army outside the walls, their battle lines formed in neat rows that Vara could see from where she stood far above them. They filled the plains around Sanctuary, more numerous than she could count, an army arrayed around them for one purpose alone-to break down the walls, sack Sanctuary, and parade the survivors along a celebratory death march back to Saekaj Sovar for the pleasure of their Sovereign. I’ll be certain to be good and dead if Sanctuary falls, she thought with a shudder. Surviving would bring with it unpleasantries I’d just as soon not deal with.

The wall was lined with bowmen, rangers who had strung their weapons and were loosing a tide of arrows down into the army below every few seconds while using the battlements for cover from the counter barrage of arrows. A shout made its way over the cry of the army below, and Thad, the castellan of Sanctuary, giving the orders to the defenders of the wall, cried out over the carnage, “Aim for the towers! Kill the dark elves pushing them!”

Vara came to the edge of the battlement and glanced out. Wooden towers built to the height of the curtain wall were sliding over the uneven ground, born along by the efforts of soldiers below. She looked left, toward the gate, and saw a battering ram working at the front as boiling oil was poured down upon it. A hundred catapults and trebuchets stood further back, behind the first ranks of the army, launching all manner of abuse into the air in addition to a rain of arrows that was being sent at the Sanctuary defenders. Vara ducked behind a rampart as an arrow missed her face by a matter of inches. “I do so love the weather we’re having today,” she said. “Pleasant enough temperature for summer, not overwhelmingly hot, not a cloud in the sky, unless you count the clouds of arrows-and I do.”

Alaric remained standing, tall, above the battlements, and an arrow flew past him, followed by another. Before Vara could cry out, one shot through his head, passing through him as neatly as if it had gone through another stretch of empty air. The Ghost did not even seem to notice it, though Vara felt the cry of warning and alarm die on her lips. “Weather aside, I hope we have a healer upon these battlements for those who are not quite as ephemeral as myself.”

“Ephemeral?” Vara stared at his receding back. “You just had an arrow fly through your head as though it weren’t there.”

“Which?” Alaric asked, halting to look back at her. “The arrow or my head? Because I’ve heard the latter mentioned to me before once or twice-in insult, usually.”

“Bugger it,” Vara said and charged to the next tooth in the wall, now only a few feet from where Alaric stood next to Thad, who was taking advantage of the cover offered by the crenellations. When a swarm of arrows landed around her, soaring through the gaps, she took to hands and knees, crawling the last few feet, shoving the bowmen out of the way as she passed.

“Lass,” Alaric said as she crawled up to crouch behind the crenellation beside Thad, “it would seem you’ve found a somewhat undignified way of hiding from the arrows.”

“Not all of us have insubstantial heads,” she said in irritation. “And I don’t want my quite substantial brains splattered all over the wall whilst I have no idea where the nearest healer may be.”

“Right here,” came a dull, accented voice from behind Thad. Vara leaned out, briefly, to see Andren, the scruffy elven healer, his back against a fortification, a flask in his hand as he calmly took a drink. A strong smell of booze reached her nostrils. Andren’s long, dark hair was tangled even moreso than usual. His beard was thick and seemed to have grown thicker in the last months, as though he were unconcerned about keeping it groomed at all. The bushy beard and long, tangled hair coupled with his white, frayed and dirtied healer’s robe, gave him the look of one of the vagrants found in human cities-and not at all like an elf should look.