Sovereign (60 page)

Areava finally reached the bar. She had to stop to regain her breath and loosen her muscles, especially in her sword arm which felt as heavy as lead. Galen and Charion, still flanking her, had no such trouble and the queen looked at them in envy. A guard saw she had stopped and hurried to her, bowing deeply. 'Your Majesty, are you alright? You are not wounded?'

Areava surprised herself by laughing. 'No. Just tired. I'm not used to personally smiting my enemies.'

The guard flashed a smile in return. 'It is joyous work!' he cried, and left to rejoin it.

'That's the spirit,' she said, more to herself than anyone else. She shook her right arm one more time, slightly changed the grip on her sword and stood away from the gate so she could see up to the walkway. Heavy fighting was still going on up there, and it seemed to her that the Royal Guards were getting the worst of it. Then she saw Ager.

'Captain Parmer,' she said, and watched in admiration as the crookback moved almost magically to dismay his enemies.

'I remember him from Daavis,' Charion said.

'I remember him from long before then,' Galen added with distaste. 'Let us finish this here and now.'

Lynan and Korigan watched the progress of the Red Hands and the Ocean Clan on the walls. Their hearts rose and fell with the sway of battle, and Lynan found it almost impossible to bear.

'They must open the gate soon,' he said.

'They will,' Korigan said, her voice unreasonably calm.

'Look! More guards! That little one leading them is a demon!'

'He fights very well.' She considered asking for her best archers to shoot at him, but the distance was just a little too far, and the chance of hitting one of their own just a little too great.

Lynan heard tramping behind him and turned to see that a regiment of Chandran infantry had arrived, tired from their long descent from the ridge.

'Infantry?' he thought aloud. He wheeled his horse around and approached one of their officers. 'It's a hard climb down,' he said.

The officer nodded, not really sure what to say to this formidable looking man.

'Good training, however,' Lynan continued.

'Training, your Majesty?'

'For climbing up,' Lynan said. 'Tell your men to get ready.' He pointed to the wall. 'They're going up there. Leave your spears behind. Just swords.'

The officer saluted. 'Yes, your Majesty.'

A short while later the regiment was ready, dressed in a long line. As Lynan dismounted Korigan said, 'What do you think you're doing?'

'I'm going to lead an assault on the walls of Kendra.'

'You're wounded.'

'I'm king,' he replied. 'My place is up there with my warriors.'

'Your place is here, with your army. Ager and Gudon know what they are doing.'

'No doubt. So do I.'

'Then I'm coming with you,' she said and dismounted to be by his side.

He frowned in thought. 'Good idea, but I think you should bring your own warriors.'

'There are no other infantry here.'

'No, but there are several thousand archers. If we get them on top of the wall, imagine what they could do to the enemy on the other side. We might not need to open the gate then.'

Korigan did not even reply, but hurried off to order two banners of horse archers to dismount and line up behind the Chandran infantry. When Korigan was by his side again, Lynan started walking forward, and three thousand warriors followed him. Halfway to the wall he started to trot, ignoring the pain in his side, and by the time he reached one of the ladders he had enough momentum to leap past the first five rungs. He did not wait to see how close behind the others were, but quickly climbed to the wall, leaped over, drew his sword and ran along the walkway to the gate.

Gudon finally reached Ager, something he had been trying to do ever since he and his Red Hands had climbed the wall. The resistance from the guards had been fierce, and it seemed to Gudon that he was losing two warriors for every guard that went down, but when the cry went up that their constable had fallen the odds had shifted in favour of the Chetts. At last Gudon and the Red Hands broke through the last knot of resistance on the eastern part of the walkway; he ordered half of them down the nearest stairway to secure the gate itself and then led the other half to reinforce Ager. When he finally managed to find a place in the line next to his friend he said, 'You're a hard man to find.'

'It's my size,' Ager said, and grunted as he used the flat of his sword to knock out a guard, then used his feet to kick him over the side. 'It makes me hard to find in a crowd.'

'Truth,' Gudon said. 'Duck.'

Ager ducked and Gudon stabbed a guard in the face; as the man fell back, Ager stood erect and stabbed him in the stomach.

The fighting seemed to become more intense then and neither had any breath to talk. When their sword arms were too sore and tired to move any more they fell back and let others take their place. They found a spot against the parapet to rest for a moment. They flexed their fingers to rid them of cramp. There was a commotion below and they leaned over to see what was happening, but the walkway stopped them seeing anything.

Then Ager heard a too-familiar voice, one from his not-too-distant past. 'To me! To me! Kendrans to me!'

'Fuck,' he swore under his breath.

Gudon looked at him with concern. 'What is wrong, my friend?'

'Areava! She's here!'

He tried to lean over further and Gudon had to pull him back.

'We've run out of time,' Ager told him. 'We have to win up here—now!'

He drew his sword, pushed his way back to the front of the battle on the walkway, Gudon by his side, and redoubled his efforts. The Royal Guards fell back or were killed where they stood. For a moment Ager thought they just might do it, just might clear the walkway completely before she could make a difference. Then he heard the victory cries of the guards below and knew they had just lost their chance of capturing the gate. A short while later he watched her coming up the stairway, flanked by two other fighters, both of whom he recognised. She did not rush but moved with the calm determination he remembered she always used.
Just like her mother
, he said to himself, and the thought made him uncomfortable. The surviving guards rallied around Areava, and more guards were coming up the walkway from down below now that the gate had been secured. Ager readied himself for the onslaught, exchanged a quick glance with Gudon and could see he was thinking the same thing: neither of them was going to get out of this alive.

Then something happened that changed his mind.

Lynan came.

Areava could not believe her eyes. Instead of retreating before obviously superior numbers, Ager and his determined friend charged them, the remaining Chetts crowding close behind. Royal Guards rushed to stand in front of her, but the enemy assault was so desperate that most of them were cut down. More guards pushed their way forward, and in the end their numbers started to tell. The fighting became such a close affair that swords no longer had room to swing, and soldiers had to stab to strike their opponents. Then some of the Royal Guards behind the front line used the spears to jab at the faces of the Chetts. The enemy took a step back, then another, and Areava' knew she had them.

Suddenly the air was rent by the most horrific war cry, more animal than human in its ferocity. Areava could not help twisting around to see what had caused it but there were ten or more guards in her way. She pushed her way through them and saw, running towards her, her brother. The face was different, terribly scarred, but it was Lynan. She snarled like a great bear and charged forward herself before anyone could stop her.

Their swords struck and the sound rang across the battlefield. The expert training they had received all their lives from childhood automatically took over their actions. For those who watched it was like a dance, formalised, ornate, but also a dazzling display of violence. The swords moved in a blur, thrust and parry, slash and counterslash, slid along each other in a metallic hiss, whirred and clanged. White sparks flew off their swords, and blue sparks flew off the Keys of Power around their necks.

For a long while no one dared intervene. Galen and Charion were the first to come to their senses and rushed to help Areava; but Korigan reached Lynan's side and with her a handful of Chandran infantry, fresh and eager to prove their mettle. Over the gate, Ager and Gudon renewed their attack on the Royal Guards. Now the battle swung back in the invaders' favour. Wherever there was a clear space on the walkway, a Chett archer would take position and start shooting arrows into the guards below who were still trying to reach the battle on the walkway. This close the archers did not miss, and the guards fell by the dozen, pierced two or three times by short black arrows.

Then Lynan, more experienced in combat, saw a chance against Areava. In parrying one of his blows she raised her sword arm a fraction too high, and before she could lower her arm he had moved his blade underneath hers and then lunged. She saw the danger and twisted aside, but his short sword slid under her breastplate and stabbed her near the pelvis. She yelled in pain and fell back. Lynan pulled his arm back to deliver a killing blow, but Galen and Charion hauled her back out of the way as guards took their place in the line.

'Let me go!' Areava cried. 'I'll kill him! I'll kill him!'

'No, your Majesty,' Galen said. 'He will slay you.' He lifted her breastplate to inspect the wound. The cut was deep, but the blood was bright red and seeped out. He looked up at Charion. 'She will live. Get her back to the palace.'

'What are you going to do?' Charion asked.

'Give you time to get away.'

'No!' Areava cried. 'Don't take me away! Let it end here one way or the other!' She tried to fight them but, between her exhaustion and the wound, could not push them away.

Charion looked at the queen and then at Galen. 'I don't want to lose you,' she said.

'I know,' Galen replied.

'If you die I will be queen of nothing.'

Galen shook his head. 'You will always be queen of Hume; nothing can ever change that.'

He leaned forward quickly to kiss her then stood up. 'Get Areava out,' he said and rejoined the fight.

Charion put Areava's arm around her shoulder and started moving her back to the closest stairway. A guard with a bloody head wound saw what was happening and took Areava's other arm. Between them they managed to get Areava off the wall. They rested a moment and then started moving away from the battle and back towards the palace.

Lynan was furious. Areava was escaping him and this bloody nobleman was stopping him from getting to her. No matter what he did, Galen Amptra seemed able to read his mind and block him. Feeding the fury was the pain his wound was causing him, but there was simply nothing Lynan could do about it. In the end it was a common foot soldier who did the deed; a Chandran swordsman, finding his opposite dropping from sheer exhaustion, saw an opening to his right. He was not aware the enemy thus exposed was Galen Amptra, one of the great nobles and soldiers of Grenda Lear, he only knew that there was a raised arm, a loose breastplate and an instant to make a decision. The Chandran thrust sideways with all his strength, and his sword pierced skin and muscle, slipping between two ribs to rip open blood vessels and Galen's left lung. Galen dropped to his knees and Lynan saw his chance. He slashed at his enemy's neck and sheared right through. The head leaped back and was lost, the body slumped to the ground, slid in its own blood off the walkway and fell to the ground below.

Galen's loss completed the demoralisation of the guards started by Areava's wounding. They threw down their weapons and fled, and the Chetts and Chandrans fell on them like grass wolves until there were none left alive on the wall. Before reinforcements could arrive from elsewhere in the city, Lynan ordered the gate open, and the rest of his banners rode through. They turned left and right until all the ground behind the wall was filled with them.

They waited.

'My lord?' Korigan asked Lynan.

Lynan nodded.

Korigan grinned mirthlessly, and gave the order to take the city.

The priests were trying to save the library. They had formed two chains, the first passing buckets of water from a well to the inferno started by fire arrows raging inside the church wing of the palace, the second passing books and parchments the other direction to an ancient wine cellar.

Powl and Father Rown were in the library choosing the most precious volumes to be saved first. There was so much to move and so little time that they knew many would be lost. They could hear the fire not far away, crackling and whooshing as it moved closer and closer to the library like a live thing.

Powl had almost reached the Books of Days and had made the decision to pass them by. What use the daily thoughts of primates past when all the knowledge of the continent was at risk? The thought made him stop. He paused in the action of passing on the atlas and almanac of Agostin, a book he knew was one of Queen Areava's favourites.

Not just the daily thoughts
, he told himself. In a way they represented the distilled knowledge of all the learning represented by the library, especially as it applied to their lives as priests and not simply men. He skipped the intervening books and went straight to the

Books of Days, and quickly, urgently, started passing them out.

A new sound was added to the fire, a strange whistling. Arrows broke through the library windows, sending glass in every direction. Some of the priests left the line and Powl had to order them back.

'Not long, Fathers, not long! Hold on to your courage and pray to God!'

More arrows, appearing from nowhere as if they were cast by God himself. One priest fell with an arrow in his leg, and two of his fellows had to carry him out. There was an explosion from the hallway and smoke belched into the library. Now even Powl realised it was time to go. They had saved what they could.