Cursed by Fire (39 page)

The clamor of men turned into a chaos of noise, and Dethan could do nothing but marvel at her. It was just the sort of speech he would have made … only from her it was more powerful than he could ever have imagined. He had thought her courageous before, but now he thought she was simply stunning. She was still holding her hand out to him and the crowd of men parted between them, allowing him to come up to the dais, exactly as he had when he had first come to claim his reward from her. Only this time the prize was something he wanted far more than gold … far more than anything. Burning in the hells, he had imagined any number of things in his efforts to escape his torment, but never had he come close to envisioning something so perfect. So truly heavenly. If Xaxis had given birth to him, then surely Grimu, god of the heavens, had given birth to her.

“My queen commands me,” he said, his voice resonant and deep. He did not shout. He did not need to. The sea of men had grown quiet, waiting expectantly for her to give him her blessing. “And I willingly obey.”

“General Dethan … as they are my arm, let you be my hand, and together you shall crush the throat of the Redoe between our fingers!”

Enthusiastic cheers ripped through the crowd around him, bodies leaping up, weapons thrusting up into the air. Within a heartbeat they were chanting her name.

“Selinda! Selinda!”

But Selinda had eyes only for him.

“I will be on the walls at dawn,” she said to him. “I will watch you win me.”

“Know this … Everything I do come the dawn is solely for that goal,” he said. “It has been all along.”

“I know. That was our agreement,” she said.

“No. This goes beyond that agreement,” he said, all the while knowing that he shouldn’t. “I do not wish to win you to gain a crown … though I will not pretend that is not my goal. But I could easily leave, get an army, defeat this city, and become ruler of it that way. I do not need you to do it. But I do need
you
. I do want to win
you
.”

As he spoke … as he watched … he saw tears well in her eyes. She nodded and the tears skipped down her cheeks.

“I understand. And I do not want you to win me just to rescue me from a horrible fate otherwise. I could just as easily opt out of my life altogether.”

“Do not say such things,” he said darkly, moving closer to her and pulling her down from the dais. He drew her close the instant her feet were on the ground. The roar of the crowd around them gave them a sort of privacy and they felt encapsulated within it. He reached to touch gloved fingers to her face, wishing they could be skin-to-skin. She had the softest skin imaginable and he longed to feel it. “You must fight, Selinda. If for some reason I do not come back to you, you must promise me to fight Grannish. Fight him or leave. Before you consider simply taking your life, consider that there are a dozen new lives awaiting you beyond these walls.

“But I know you and know you do not wish to abandon your people. Be strong for them, as you are being strong right now. Listen to them call your name. They love you, fight for you, and would do so at any moment. Ask them to overrun the fortress and string Grannish up for you, and they will. They are your arm … I am your hand … we will not let you down.”

“Please don’t,” she whispered, running her hand over
his broad chest, smoothing his shirt. “Please come back to me.”

“I will. Do not be afraid.”

“I am not,” she lied, holding her chin up. “Now, where is your armor? Your breastplate?”

“Inside my headquarters,” he said with a chuckle. “Never fear. I am immortal but not stupid. I may not die from many blows, but they can take me down and the army with me. I will not let that happen. And I like my head firmly attached, so … my only choice is to win and come back to you.”

“Good.” She moved away from him, as hard as it was, and went to her horse. He helped her into the saddle, and she looked around at the incredible force of men Dethan had put together. “I will be on the wall. I will watch from there.”

“Be careful,” he warned her. “If they have archers, you are to get inside immediately.”

“I will.”

She encouraged her horse and rode away slowly, reaching to touch hands with the press of men who followed her progress away.

They loved her, Dethan thought, marveling over her. But then again, she was easy to love. She had done much to gain their devotion. She had conquered this city in a fashion previously alien to him. He had always used force … but she had used gentility and kindness. She had not sat on the power of her birthright alone. She had given to her people everything she could in spite of the limitations Grannish imposed upon her.

He had faith that she would find another way, should something happen to him. He did not want her to have to fight anymore, but if she had to she would.

“Tonkin, my arm—”

There was a scream that cut him off. Then another.
The sound of whistling air and then solid thumps and clangs rose up all around him.

“Archers!” he shouted, knowing the sound all too well. The rain of arrows came faster and thicker. “Kyran! Get the men against the wall!” He looked up at the wall and saw city guardsmen falling, riddled with arrows, or fleeing away from them. “Tonkin, get Selinda inside! Remember, I am depending on you! Kyran, I want a contingent up on the wall immediately! I want to see what they are doing!”

Not that they could see much in the dark of night. But they would see what they could. The question was not so much what they were doing but why they were doing it. Why then? Why, after all these weeks of simply sitting out there, content to lay siege, did they just happen to attack … mere hours before Hexis was scheduled to do the same at dawn. Now the element of surprise had been lost and instead they were the ones taken by surprise.

The city was utter chaos within minutes. Civilians and soldiers both were running around in panic. The screams of women filled the air. Dethan rushed up the steps of the dais and shouted for the men’s attention until he had a large portion of it, the immediate crowd calming. He issued orders sharply, splitting his forces—into those who would wait against the wall and those who would be at the gate—and calling forth his archers. He then ran for the wall. He thundered up the stairs alongside a group of archers. By the time he came out into the open air of the wall the initial panic had come to a halt. He could hear Kyran’s voice and the voices of other commanders corralling the attention of the men below.

“Archers, make ready!” Dethan said, his voice booming out. The command was echoed up and down the wall, and the sound of fire catching was heard as the archers
lit the ends of their arrows. The Redoe lived in tents made of fabric … fabric treated with wax to keep the rain out. Fire was their worst enemy, and Dethan was about to rain it down on them.

“Loose!” he shouted.

As a single entity, the archers closest to him released their arrows. The command echoed down the wall and one group of arrows after another went flying from the wall. It would have been better if they could have seen their targets, but that was not to be for another two hours.

“Ready again!” he shouted.

But before they could release, an answering wave of arrows came sailing over the wall. Before he could take cover, an arrow hit Dethan squarely in the left shoulder. He went down with the force of it and he cursed viciously from the pain. But he had suffered much worse, and he recovered quickly. The men could not see him wounded or perceive that he was out of the battle in any way. He grabbed the shaft of the arrow in his hand and with a mighty pull yanked the thing free of his flesh.

“Gods!” he hissed, taking the pain of it on his knees for a minute, throwing the arrow down. Then he was up on his feet and commanding his men once more. “Loose!”

There was a moment’s hesitation as the men absorbed the sight of him shrugging off his wounds. But then, immediately after, a volley of fiery arrows left the top of the wall.

The two forces traded arrows like that for the better part of half an hour. The Redoe tried to send flaming arrows back at them, but very few made it over the wall, proving that they had no experience in shooting them. Flaming arrows were heavier at the head and required adjusting for the weight of them.

As the flaming arrows of the Hexis forces hit their marks, the Redoe encampment began to burn. One tent
after another caught fire and soon the entire encampment was ablaze enough to light it as clearly as if it were a room being lit by braziers. It revealed that the encampment had very few people in it, the forces of the Redoe sitting hidden somewhere in the dark. Since there was only farmland beyond the wall, that left little in the way of hiding places.

Kyran was readying troops at the gate, preparing to set them loose on the Redoe the moment Dethan commanded it.

That’s when Dethan realized where they were hiding.

“Kyran! Don’t open the gates! Make certain they are well locked!” he shouted down to him. “The Redoe are lying in wait along the walls! We wait until daylight, when we can see them!”

“Understood!” Kyran shouted back.

The Redoe were counting on darkness as well as surprise to be their advantages, and already they were half right. But now that the initial shock of the attack was over, the men had regrouped themselves and were ready for whatever would come next.

“Fire down along the wall!” Dethan shouted to the archers.

The archers lit arrows, moved to the edge of the wall, and fired. Screams and shouts rose up to them from below and the fire of the arrows lit up the Redoe troops. Immediately they began to fall back into the darkness.

“Shoot again! Follow them!”

And so it went, the archers shooting into darkness, until Dethan finally ordered them to stop, letting the Redoe fall back to their torched encampments.

Dethan cursed as he came down off the wall, his shoulder hurting and bleeding heavily. But his temper was high and it kept him from noticing.

The Redoe had known they were coming. Someone had forewarned them. He would bet his immortal soul
that he knew exactly who it had been. But he had no time or luxury to pursue that just then. He found a page and had him help dress him in his breastplate.

He had been caught off guard once already; he would not let it happen again.

By the time daylight came, the forces of Hexis were itching for action. The trading of arrows had stopped long ago, Dethan conserving what was left of their ammunition for when they could see their targets. Meanwhile, he had ordered the cauldrons of hot wax fired up, the liquid ready to be dumped over the walls in case the Redoe came again and tried to scale them. They would have been ready for the initial attack had it gone off at dawn as they had planned, but … there was nothing they could do about the mistakes of the past. They were ready now. That would have to be enough.

Once dawn arrived, he ordered the gates unlocked and the men, more than ready, poured out of the portal the instant it was opened, with a roar of anger lifting from deep in the bellies of furious men. These men had been raped of their crops by the Redoe again and again, season after season, and they’d had their fill of it. Finally, today, they would be able to fight back. They would fight back from poverty and fight back from starvation.

The battle was tremendous. Dethan was in the thick of it with them and so was able to see, with surprise, that the supposedly native, simple Redoe were heavily armored against the Hexis forces. But the armor that protected them was not the advantage they had hoped it would be because it was clear they were not used to moving under the weight of it. The Hexis forces, while more exposed, were freer to move, faster on their feet, and could swing wide without encumbrance.

Dethan had no trouble moving under his armor. The god-made metal was feather-light. Each time a Redoe
blade struck, it glanced off or bounced back. There wasn’t so much as a scratch to indicate the armor had been struck at all.

Dethan slammed his weapon into one man, pulled it out, and swung it into another. Both dropped dead to the ground as Dethan looked up at the walls of Hexis. True to her word, Selinda stood there. He could tell because she had dressed completely in scarlet red, a beacon to any man who went in search of her. They all knew their grandina was there to support them, that she was proud of them for fighting for their city. But Dethan also saw the danger of it. She made herself a target, easy to see and aim for. But he knew she would not care. He would have to have faith that Tonkin was watching over her, protecting her as best as he was able. Dethan focused on the battle at hand, finding himself somehow energized by the thought of her standing there. All exposed and in danger. The only way he could keep her safe was to kill … to destroy … to win. Dethan became a vicious machine of death, his sword flying in and out of bodies, his emotions for Selinda riding high within him. He should not let it. He should remain calm and focused … and yet he had never felt more focused in his life. She was the arm, he was the hand, and together they fought with vicious perfection.

The Redoe finally faltered around midday. The hot sun baked them in their armor, the relentless mud-farmer soldiers of Hexis throwing themselves into the battle with a fury the Redoe simply did not feel in return. The Redoe were not defending their home. The Redoe, in the end, had thought Hexis would be an easy conquest and were now discovering that was not the case.

They began to retreat.

Dethan raised the flag being held by the page near him and waved it furiously. He waited until he saw the
same colored flag raised up on the wall, it too waving furiously.

And with a roar, over the hillside came a second force of Hexis soldiers, this one fully behind the Redoe … leaving them nowhere to run, sandwiched perfectly between the two. And with a new injection of fighting blood, it was clear the Redoe had no hope of victory.

It was clear even to the shocked eyes of the woman watching from the top of the walls. Seeing that unexpected troop of soldiers come over the rise to fight for Hexis had to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. At first, upon seeing them from the wall, she had thought they were Redoe troops lying in wait. But it was quickly evident whose side they were on, as it became evident who was going to win the day. The war. By the end of the day the Redoe would be gone … for good.