Betrayal at Falador (53 page)

Yet that would give him a small chance to keep his formation intact and a slim possibility to enter the battle with speed and weight behind him.

With a cruel snarl Gaius made his choice. He raised his hand in command and the Kinshra cavalry gained speed, their direction unchanging.

They were going to ride down their own men.

The militia moved toward the gates of Falador, Lord Tremene at their head. The sounds of plunder were accompanied by the roaring flames that consumed the houses nearest to the breached wall. Yet their advance went unchallenged. It was as if the enemy had melted away. For the charge of the knights had cleared the western breach—those Kinshra who were not caught by their onslaught had hastened east to join with the rest of their army.

Lord Tremene saw Captain Ingrew watch them from the gatehouse, where he and his fellow guards had barricaded themselves in the hope of holding it long enough for the knights to ride out.

“Lord Tremene! How goes the war?” the captain called down from the fortified height.

“It appears the Kinshra fist has fallen upon the northeast quarter of the city,” Lord Tremene called back. Even as he spoke he looked warily toward the nearby houses and cast an expectant eye up to the high walls. As the commander of the militia he would be the first target of any archer. The thought made him uncomfortable, and unconsciously he gripped his reins tighter, until his knuckles paled.

There was the sound of the barricades being ripped away from behind the stout doors, a testament to how far the city guard had gone to seal themselves in. Captain Ingrew emerged from the gatehouse.

“I have forty men with me” he said, blinking in the darkening sky as the wind carried the plumes of black smoke from the fires in the east.

Nearby, a house that had been burning since the Kinshra onslaught collapsed. The men nearest to it stepped back, away from flames that even from thirty yards were uncomfortably hot.

“Then what shall we do?” Lord Tremene asked the younger man.

“I suggest we march out onto the plain with the knights. That way Sulla will have to call his men out of the city, and our fellows still fighting in the northeast will have fairer odds.”

Lord Tremene looked at his men sorrowfully. It would be a suicide mission. Carefully he turned his horse toward the open gate and rode slowly forward. As one, the men of Falador marched out after him.

The Kinshra cavalry had mercilessly ridden into their fleeing infantry, crushing them and ignoring their cries in their eagerness to engage the knights.

Yet the infantry had severely impeded their charge. Many of the Kinshra foot soldiers had sought only to save their own lives, and swiftly they had dug their pikes into the soft earth and stood resolutely before the black-armoured horses charging them down. In the end the infantry had been destroyed, but the Kinshra cavalry had lost its momentum and many of its foremost men.

That, in itself, would have been enough to give the Knights of Falador a fighting chance of victory, but Sir Vyvin chose to make it a certainty. As the Kinshra cavalry charged through the last of their own infantry, he urged his horse on and his men followed his example.

In he charged, intercepting the Kinshra and driving his warhorse into the flank of their formation. He and his men forced the enemy to press up against one another. This destroyed the Kinshra charge, for his flank attack had been perfect. The horses they had struck turned in to the horses next to them, and so on, rolling up the line as if it was an oriental blind from eastern Al Kharid.

Suddenly Sir Amik stood in his saddle, signalling his counter-charge.

Where can he have found such strength?
Sir Vyvin wondered in awe.
Only a true commander can draw such energy from battle.

In the knights shot, their white armour piercing the black formation like a bolt of lightning across the darkest night sky. Swords parried lances, pushing the deadly points aside before driving their polished tips into the now-vulnerable foes. Wherever sword met lance it was the same, for at close quarters the lance was an unwieldy weapon against an experienced blade.

Sir Vyvin hacked wildly at the face of the horse nearest him. As the animal turned away, its rider was vulnerable to a vicious stab that cut into his back.

The Kinshra horsemen knew they were losing, but only one man refused to run. Sir Vyvin guessed that he was the commander, and that he knew he had led his men into a humiliating defeat. With a courage born of despair he harangued his men from the saddle, bullying them into fighting.

“Fight, you cowards! Fight—or Zamorak take you all!” Gaius roared, driving into the ranks of his enemy with a bestial rage.

A flash of white armour on his left made him turn, but it was too late. With a precise lunge a defender drove his sword into his body, avoiding the black armour and finding the softer leather beneath his arm. It was a mortal wound.

Gaius screamed as the blade was withdrawn, his hands losing their grip on rein and lance alike. He could feel his life seeping from him. With a feeling of hopelessness, he turned to look into the face of his killer. It was a boy, a peon of the knights who was no more than twelve years old.

“A boy! Killed by a child!” he cried, falling from his saddle to the stained earth.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

“Send a message to the goblin commander” Sulla raged. “Tell him to move south toward the city.” He had watched as half his cavalry had been destroyed by an inferior force. He cursed Gaius with the blackest words he knew, for the fool had lost a fight which he had started with every advantage.

But at least Falador has offered itself up for battle,
he thought. Now he knew he had the city’s last resistance before him.

“Tell the artillery they have a new target!” he called to the nearest messenger and issued new commands to the man, who immediately galloped to the north, where Sulla’s cannons were stretched in a line facing the city.

The goblin mass reluctantly began to move south from their position. Since their defeat many had deserted, yet still they were two thousand-strong. But they were a rabble, he knew— undisciplined, exhausted and unwilling to be sacrificed in order to give Sulla another chance at victory. They might turn south, but they would be in no hurry to battle the knights.

Sulla knew the goblins would be incapable of winning and he knew that his own army, split between those inside the city and those outside, was in danger of being destroyed. Controlling his anger lest he make a decision he would regret, he sent another messenger with new instructions.

“Recall the men from inside the city. Have the remaining cavalry form up for a charge,” he ordered calmly, knowing that he needed to concentrate his army before he could hope to smash his enemy once and for all.

SIXTY-EIGHT

The smell in the narrow passageway was nauseating, for they were wading through the sewage of the city. Ebenezer fought hard to stop himself from retching.

“It’s not far now” Sir Tiffy said. “He can only be going to one place from here on. There are several cellars hidden down here, so old that I’d nearly forgotten them. We had a plan years ago to use them as hidden armouries but, in fact, we decided we didn’t need any inside the city itself.

“Come on!” he urged.

The four men trudged onward, the pungent smell growing as they approached a stagnant pool. A faint draft blew down the tunnel toward them. Within a few seconds they entered a large chamber, walking knee deep in dark water.

“The entrance to the cellars is behind that door at the top of those steps” Sir Tiffy whispered. They crossed the chamber quickly and climbed the steps, moving in absolute silence. Marius and Sir Finistere drew their blades and Ebenezer stood nervously by.

“There is a light inside” Sir Tiffy whispered after peering around the open door. “It comes from the next room. I shall put out our lantern and we will go in.”

The light was extinguished. Silently Sir Tiffy drew his blade and handed the lantern to Sir Finistere at the rear.

“We must take him alive if we can,” the spymaster said. Ebenezer knew it was a decision not influenced by mercy, but rather by the idea of lengthy punishment.

Marius went first, followed closely by Sir Tiffy and then Ebenezer. Sir Finistere, the oldest of the group, came last, the excitement he felt reflected feverishly in his usually calm eyes. With eager steps they approached the room from where the light was shining, taking care not to brush against the unlocked iron gate that hung open against the wall.

Sir Tiffy clutched suddenly at Marius’s shoulder, pulling the squire back.

“We shall rush him,” he mouthed, raising his hand as a signal. Each of his friends nodded, and he lowered his hand. At once they rushed into the room.

There, in the glow of a lantern and hunched over a crooked desk, sat the man they had sought for so long—the man who had lived treacherously amongst the knights for so many years, who had betrayed Sir Amik’s battle plan, and who had come so close to destroying their entire order. There sat the traitor, alone and strangely silent.

Sir Vyvin knew that the roar of the Kinshra guns signalled an adversary against which the knights had no defence. Horses and men were obliterated as the round shot drove deep chasms into the packed formation. But still Sir Amik rode ever eastward toward the centre breach, forcing their enemies to come streaming from the city for one last battle.

At the front of their charge, Sir Vyvin crashed to the earth when his horse was shot from under him. As his steed fell, he rolled instinctively, despite his armour, and his reactions saved him from breaking any bones.

Whilst ahead, Sir Amik was mercifully spared as a single shot passed only a hairsbreadth above his head.

The toll of the guns was terrible. Dozens lay crippled or dead.

Sulla watched the knights with contempt.

Standing by him, Jerrod seemed uneasy, and Sulla knew that his ally’s snarl masked his fear.

He is a solitary hunter, not used to open warfare—though he would kill without hesitation, such carnage unnerves him.

The Kinshra lord motioned to one of his messengers.

“Form the infantry into two bodies. Have the cavalry prevent the knights from making any escape.”

Behind his visor Sulla smiled suddenly, realising that this was the successful conclusion of his dreams. It had never been about Falador—rather his hatred had been for the knights themselves. Now, outside the walls of the city with his five hundred cavalry and two thousand infantry stretched before him, he vowed to erase them from history.

“Say something!” Sir Tiffy shouted, his passion overwhelming him as tears streaked down his face. He ran to the unmoving man, shaking him violently.

Marius rushed to his side.

“Wait, sir!” he shouted, pulling Sir Tiffy away. “Look!” the squire said, pointing to Sir Erical’s stomach and away from his strangely ashen face.

Sir Tiffy pulled aside the man’s cloak, which had fallen across his front. And as he did so he realised what a fool he had been.

For Sir Erical was dead. He had been dead for at least a day, murdered and abandoned to the rats by his killer.

“It is not him” Sir Tiffy gasped as he suddenly realised what that meant. “Sir Erical is not the traitor!” He looked vacantly to Ebenezer in shock.

Then, as one, they turned. Suddenly alert to the danger.

But it was too late.

The iron gate slammed shut, and from outside dreadful laughter sounded through the strong bars that had now become their prison.

The man rode as swiftly as his horse was able, guiding it toward Sulla. In his hand he clutched a Kinshra missive from the camp, marked with Sulla’s own personal seal.

“Read it!” Sulla told the man. That it bore his personal mark enraged the Kinshra leader, for he had authorized no such thing.

But the messenger was terrified, and seemed unable to find his voice.

“What does it say, man?” Sulla demanded without attempting to conceal his anger.

Wide-eyed the messenger looked up, swallowing hard before commencing.

“It is addressed to you, Lord Sulla. It is a demand for your surrender. It says that if you turn yourself over to them as a prisoner, then the rest of us shall be spared. If not, then none of us shall end this day alive.”

“Who dares?” Sulla laughed mirthlessly. “Where is the knight of Saradomin who is foolish enough to demand our surrender in his city’s final hour? Has he nothing better to do than send impotent words against us, now that he has lost his sword?”

Sulla’s men smirked at his confidence, but a whimper from the panicked messenger drew their attention once more.

“It was no knight... my lord!” the messenger said. He gestured back to the north and the men of the Kinshra looked toward their camp.

Sulla’s single eye strained to focus. Then the faint flicker of orange flame caught his attention.

His camp was burning.

Swiftly he placed his foot in the stirrup to lift himself up into the saddle, lowering his visor in preparation for battle.