Thoriol slammed his quiver on the stone in front of him, hefted his bow to shoulder height and adjusted position, placing his left foot forward and preparing for the first draw. Only then did he look out beyond the battlements, across the plains that had been until that day empty of life and movement.
All had changed. Marching figures now filled the wasteland, teeming like flies. They were advancing slowly, arranged in long ranks of tight-packed infantry. He couldn’t begin to guess how many there were – the entire eastern fringe of the plain was dark with them. They marched in rhythm to the incessant beat of the war-drums, swaying in perfect unison under stone-dark banners. Some regiments were clad entirely in close-fitting metal plates; others had donned chainmail hauberks; still more wore heavy breastplates over leather jerkins, their warhammers and battle-axes clutched two-handed.
Behind the front ranks came the war machines – huge and grotesque devices of iron, bronze and wood, dragged into position on massive spiked wheels or metal-bound rollers. Thoriol saw stone-throwers, pitch-lobbers, trebuchets, ballistae, battlefield crossbows, grapnel hurlers and other things he had no name for. Each was massive, towering over the hordes that milled around them, crowned with beaten war-masks and mighty iron rune-plates.
Brazier pans glowed angrily under the open sky, polluting the clear blue with snaking columns of dirty brown. The war-horns kept on blaring, overlapping with one another in a cacophony of hard-edged, intimidatory clamour. None of the dwarfs spoke. None of them chanted or sang – they just tramped across the plain, sweeping with remorseless slowness, surrounding the city in a closing vice.
Thoriol swallowed. He could feel his heart racing. Those on either side of him tensed, ready for the order to draw. Some of the archers were veterans of a hundred engagements and kept their faces stony with resolve; others were scarce more experienced than Thoriol and their nerves were evident even as they attempted to hide them.
The dwarfs came on, closing to five hundred yards of the walls. At such a distance Thoriol could clearly see the details on their armour – the sigils, the battle-runes, the daubs and spots of blood. Every tattooed and bearded face was twisted into hatred, warped by a single-minded desire to break the walls, to drag them down, to drown the city in blood.
So many.
Then, with no obvious order given, the host stopped. Every dwarf halted his march and stood perfectly still. The war-drums ceased. The horns stopped. For an awful moment, the entire plain sank into a fragile silence.
It seemed to go on forever. As if in some bizarre dream, the two armies faced one another across the empty land, uttering no words and issuing no challenge.
Then, as suddenly as the dwarfs had stopped, each raised his weapon above his head. Tens of thousands of mauls, axes, short-swords, flails, warhammers and crossbows pointed directly at the walls, each one aimed in ritual denunciation.
Khazuk! came the cry – an immense, rolling, booming challenge. Every wrong, every grievance, was distilled into that one word and hurled up at the white walls of the city like a curse.
Khazuk!
The din of it was incredible, a roar that seemed to fill the heavens and the earth. Thoriol had to work hard not to fall back from the parapet edge, to creep into the cool shade of the stone and escape the horror of it.
Khazuk!
The third shout was the greatest, a mighty bellow that felt as if it would shatter crystal and dent stone. In its wake the war-horns started up again, underpinned by the frenzied beating of drums. The host began to move once more, but this time the shouts of challenge did not stop. Tor Alessi was besieged by it, surrounded by the maelstrom.
‘Hold fast,’ warned Baelian. His voice was as steady as the granite around them. Thoriol wondered if anything scared him.
Four hundred yards. Trumpets sounded on the elven battlements, almost drowned by the surge of noise out on the plain.
‘Prepare,’ ordered Baelian, just as hundreds of other company captains did the same. Tens of thousands of archers stooped for their first arrow, fixing it against the string and preparing for the draw.
Three hundred yards; just on the edge of their range. Thoriol held his stance, feeling like his muscles were about to seize up. He felt nauseous, and swallowed hard.
A second trumpet-blast rang out.
‘Draw,’ ordered Baelian, notching his own arrow.
Thoriol heaved the string to his cheek. He held it tight, feeling the feathers of the arrow’s fletching against his forefinger.
Two hundred and fifty yards. Optimal range. The dwarfs must have known it, but they just kept on marching, still chanting, shouting, challenging and making no effort to evade the storm to come.
This was it. This was the culmination of everything he’d been working for, the final fruits of a foolish flight to Lothern away from the deadening hopes of his father.
Perhaps he might catch sight of me in all this, thought Thoriol dryly. Perhaps he might approve. Perhaps, for once, I might make him proud.
Then the final trumpet-blast, the signal to release. Up until now it had all been a mere shadow-play, a rehearsal, a toothless precursor.
‘Let fly!’ ordered Baelian.
As one they loosed their arrows, and the sky went dark.
Drutheira woke with a start. For a moment she had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Sevekai’s face had been in her dreams again, chiding her for leaving him. She hadn’t had visions of him for a long time, not since Bloodfang’s presence had been in her mind.
It unsettled her. Sevekai was gone, dead, his body rotting at the foot of a mountain gorge. He had no business still affecting her, skulking in her dreams like a spectre of Hag Graef.
It was dark – pitch dark. For a moment she feared she’d slept far into the night, but then, as her awareness returned, she remembered having to tie strips of her cloak around her eyes to blot out the sun. She ripped them
