The Broken Blade (34 page)

Eamon shivered as the King's words passed over him, for he understood. He looked across at the city, to the dim mass within its walls that he knew to be the palace.

The throned; the Lord of Dunthruik; Edelred. There could be no peace, no victory, until Hughan had met him and done… what?

He realized that he did not know and looked back at Hughan with renewed awe. The King still held Feltumadas's gaze. At last, the Easter lord nodded.

“Very well, Star, delay your entry if you wish,” he said.

“Bring the ram to the Blind Gate,” Hughan commanded. “We will take it first, then the ram will go to the South with myself, the southern wayfarer infantry, and the knights. The First Knight will go to the North with the hobilars and Easter cavalry.” Eamon looked up in a daze. “We will attempt our own entries, but once you breach the Blind Gate, send men north and south. We will make use of the tunnels by the South Gate.”

“Even so, I shall grant you admittance, Star,” Feltumadas smiled.

“We will meet at the Four Quarters,” Hughan continued. “From there we will press on into the West.” Eamon glimpsed a vision of the Four Quarters running with blood and choked back sudden, terrible grief.

How could the city bear it?

The King drew a deep breath. “Draw up the lines, Lord Feltumadas.”

Those men who had survived the first part of the battle regrouped. As he watched the men reform, Eamon glanced up at the sky; it was nearly midday. He felt as though he had spent a whole lifetime out on the field, but it had only been a few hours.

“How are you faring?” Hughan asked him. Eamon realized that in gazing up at the sun the King had a fine view of the swelling beneath his sweaty, matted hair. He drove his hair out of his face.

“I have been better,” he answered truthfully, “but I have been worse.”

Hughan laughed kindly.

Feltumadas returned to them. “The lines will be drawn as soon as we are able,” he told them. “I have sent word for the ram to be brought across the River.”

“Thank you,” Hughan nodded to him.

Feltumadas inclined his head and rode away.

It took some time for the ram to be brought from across the River; men and oxen drew the huge engine. These were led on by drummers and accompanied by a hundred archers as the ram went up to the gate. Eamon could only watch it as it came, marvelling at its size and construction. He had never seen anything like it and expected that Dunthruik's defenders would be as astounded by it as he was. More so: it would threaten their gates and their lives.

He watched as, group by group, Gauntlet and knights who had surrendered outside the city walls were marched back to the far side of Hughan's lines, the wounded to the field hospital and the others to detention areas. Eamon scanned the files of passing men for faces
familiar to him, and though he saw some – mostly ensigns from the North and East – in his heart he knew that he could not hope to know what had become of those he loved the most until the day was done. Still, he saw also that the number of prisoners or surrendering men taken from the field was not small – in fact, great swathes of the Gauntlet had surrendered – and although the injuries borne by some of them were severe and not all of them would live, the sight heartened him.

But when he turned his eyes again towards the city, he saw that the plain before Dunthruik was showered with the dead. He did not doubt that men whom he knew lay among them. As the Easters' ram worked its slow way across the field towards the Blind Gate, carrion birds gathered.

The King's men brought new arrows from the camp and scoured the field for any that they might reuse in their bows. As Eamon watched those who searched among the wreck of the field, he shuddered at the number of men who lay beneath the full heat of the May sun. He felt spent, and sweltered in his armour; he wished nothing more than for the day to be done and to return to his quarters to have the stuff taken off him.

His quarters: the thought brought him up short. He had no quarters now.

He rode to distract himself while he waited. Every now and then thresholders on the city walls let loose a volley of arrows at the King's men as they moved their battering ram, but the wayfarer lines were too far back from the wall to be in any real danger. One of the Easters at the ram whistled softly to himself as he worked.

All the same, a terrible anticipation hovered over the field.

As he rode over the stricken plain, avoiding much of its debris, Eamon's attention was caught by a glint of metal nestled in a tiny ditch. Riding closer he recognized it and smiled: his helmet. He dismounted to reclaim it, marvelling that, despite the number of men who must have passed over it, it was for the most part intact; only the strap was broken. He laughed quietly as he picked it up,
brushing dirt from it and untangling the feathers from the twisted cord. He wished the same could be said for his head as for his helm.

He set the helmet back on his head and felt a sharp stab of pain in his left arm. Unable to press it he tried flexing his fingers to ease it, but to no avail. The marks of Cathair's hound were still on him and he wondered how many other marks he would bear by the end of the day. He had been fortunate – perhaps more fortunate than he deserved – that morning, and fighting through the streets of Dunthruik to the West Quarter and the palace would be harder and more perilous than battle upon the field. His throat went dry at the thought of it.

As he flexed his fingers, a man laughed behind him.

“Is that something they teach you to do when they make you Right Hand?” a voice asked.

“I can't tell you,” Eamon answered, turning to the voice with a smile.

Before him stood Giles. The burly man was battle-worn but seemed curiously uninjured. His sword was sheathed at his side.

“Where did you learn to ride like that?” the man asked.

Eamon gestured across the plain at the groves that led to Ravensill. “About there,” he answered.

Anderas. It was Anderas who had taught him to ride fearlessly across Dunthruik's plains, and where was he now? He could only hope that the captain, and the vast majority of the East Quarter, were alive and in a place of safety.

“The King sent me,” Giles added. “He says they're about to begin the assault.”

Eamon nodded and tried to daub sweat from his brow. It was no more than an hour after midday. They would begin what would be the most difficult part of the battle in the hottest and most wretched part of the day.

“I'm ready,” he said.

He rode with Giles to the King. Hughan watched quietly as the Easter ram went up against the gate under a hail of arrows. But the ram was impervious to them and the Easters who went with it
were well protected by a tortoise-shell of shields. The hail was met, shot for shot, by the Easter crossbowmen, much to the thresholders' peril. The surviving King's men had drawn up again on the field.

Hughan smiled as Eamon approached. “Come with me,” he said.

Eamon followed a little way behind the King as Hughan made his way to the reformed lines. The King's men looked worn and battered, but they could see that they had won the morning and that gave them the strength to cheer their King as he rode before them.

“You have fought bravely,” Hughan cried, “and we emerge from this field with a dear cost that can never be paid back to us. We will take this city, and though we have borne loss it will not be a place of vengeance.” His tone and look hardened. “There will be no pillage, and there will be no rape. Any man who commits either will answer to me for his crime with his life.”

As the King spoke, he seemed to reach every man with his words and gaze. Eamon understood that every man there knew well the King's heart.

“We go into this city in war but not for war,” Hughan told them. “You are King's men; you are my men. Let every one of you love mercy and do justly. Let every one of you be humble and valiant men of peace.”

Eamon felt the truth of the King's words renew his spirit. Along with the countless other men still standing on the field, he lifted his voice to cheer the King.

As the cheering continued, Hughan looked to Eamon. “You will take fifteen hundred men with you to the North Gate to take it.”

Eamon nodded. In that moment there seemed to be nothing strange or difficult to him in Hughan's command.

“The Easters mean to send the ram South when they've finished here,” Hughan told him. “Can you get into the North Gate without it?”

Eamon gazed north and thought for a moment. Perhaps he could.

He turned to Giles. “Do you ride with me?”

“Yes,” Giles answered.

“Get yourself a red jacket.”

Giles didn't query the command, but went at once to recover a red coat from one of the fallen bodies. The wayfarers had gathered many such bodies from the field while they awaited the assault.

Hughan looked curiously at Eamon. “What do you intend?”

Eamon smiled softly. “Perhaps they'll still let me in.”

To the side, hundreds of Easters and wayfarers by the ram began to loose arrows at the city walls, setting panic among the thresholders even if none were struck. The city's archers took aim and marked the arrow slits in the city's walls. Some crossbowmen were hit by returning shots.

A terrific boom shuddered through the air as the ram struck against the Blind Gate. Infantry prepared ladders near the walls as the ram struck again at the gate.

“Be careful,” Hughan told Eamon.

Eamon matched his gaze. “And you.” It was a solemn and frightening moment.

Hughan clasped his hand. “I will see you at the Four Quarters, First Knight.”

Eamon breathed deeply. “At the Four Quarters, sire.”

The King and his men went south towards the gate as the ramming at the Blind Gate continued. Eamon realized he was the captain of an enormous group of Easters and hobilars; all watched him attentively as Giles returned wearing Dunthruik colours and a broad smile.

Eamon turned to the waiting men. “Are you ready to ride with me?” he asked them.

“We await your command, First Knight,” said another voice. Leon watched Eamon from among the hobilars. The man nodded to him.

Eamon swallowed, feeling a new wash of fear and anticipation run through him. How many times had he ridden to the Four Quarters, as lieutenant, Hand, Quarter Hand, and Right Hand?

Now he would forge a path to the Four Quarters as the King's First Knight.

“To the North Gate,” he ordered.

Eamon and the men entrusted to him went about the bound of Dunthruik's walls. The King's men and allies stayed well out of range of the thresholders and their arrows.

“Hold this position and wait for the gates to open,” Eamon instructed his captains. “I will take the hobilars with me. They will need to follow some distance behind so as to avoid detection.

“There is a postern to one side of the gate. That is my goal. If I can convince them to open the postern, I will attempt to hold it open long enough for the hobilars to sneak through. Once they are through, we shall attempt to open the main gate. Once that gate starts to open, order your men to advance through it with all possible haste to secure it.”

“And if they don't open the postern?” asked a captain.

Eamon grimaced. “Then we try to get away alive, and crack open this gate the hard way.”

“And how will you convince them to open the postern, pray tell?”

Eamon turned to Giles. “That is where you come in, Giles. No doubt you wonder why I've asked you to dress in the colours of Dunthruik.”

“The thought had crossed my mind, sir.”

“Together we ride to the gate. You will ride as though injured. I shall invoke my authority as the Right Hand to have the gates opened.”

“And we just ride in?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of us?”

Eamon nodded. It was a foolhardy plan, but it was the only plan he had. He was counting on the fact that the gate defenders were isolated enough from the plain not to know of his true allegiance, and that the ruse of bringing an injured soldier safely inside the walls was so much in character for Lord Goodman that they would not question his motives more closely. “Just the two of us. Then comes the difficult bit as we hold the gate open long enough for the King's forces to pass through.” He looked at Giles sternly. “Are you up to the task? There is no shame in wanting to bow out. Speak now and I shall find another.”

“I serve gladly,” said Giles.

 

At Eamon's command, he and Giles went far ahead of the mass of men. Giles rode slumped over to one side as though badly wounded. Flushed with adrenaline, Eamon found that his weariness flowed out of his veins to be replaced by a surge of the strength which had carried him that morning to Hughan's lines.

Eamon caught a glimpse of Giles's face as they went; it was lit with the thrill of battle and Eamon remembered that the man was no easy foe. That was, in part, why he had chosen Giles to accompany him. The two of them would have to use all their guile, wits, and strength to hold open the door to give the hobilars time to pass through.

The field beneath them was scattered with fallen helms and bolts, but their horses, trained for the shattered fields of battle, passed easily over them. Eamon wondered whether the steeds felt as weary, or as driven, as their riders. The boom of the Easter ram against the Blind Gate echoed across the field as they rode. Another, much louder, crack followed the sound. It seemed to move the very ground.

It was then that Eamon's thought lightninged to Arlaith's face and laugh: “
This city has artillery
.” But he had not the time to see if it were true – he had to take the North Gate.

The great gate was closed and bolted. Eamon peered up. He could not see them, but he knew thresholders lined the upper walls.
As he and Giles came to a halt beneath the gate, men called to one another on the far side. Eamon wondered how long it would be before they hurled things other than curses down at their foes.

In the great expanse of the main gate there was a postern. It was to this that Eamon and Giles went, Giles now hunched forward over his horse's neck. Eamon knew that the gate guards – a small group of Gauntlet or thresholders with orders to hold the gate – waited behind the doorway. He also knew that most of Dunthruik's thresholders would be either at the Blind Gate – doing their best to stave off the battering ram – or at the port, ostensibly to assure the neutrality of the merchant vessels there, but perhaps seeking a means of escape. The latter thought encouraged him.

As Giles, affecting frailty, dismounted, Eamon also came down beside him and took firm grasp of his shoulders, as though shoring him up against a terrible injury. He led Giles to the postern and rammed his fist harshly against the door.

“Open!” Eamon yelled.

He heard voices on the other side that sounded uncertain and alarmed. It did not surprise him.

“I am the Right Hand!” Eamon cried. Giles leaned hard against him as he continued. “There is a wounded man with me. His injury will not brook delay – open the door!”

“The Right Hand commands the forces at the Blind Gate,” the hesitant voice replied.

“So I did – but I was caught outside the Blind Gate during the retreat. It has taken me some time to make my way here unnoticed – even so, I am now pursued.” He bit his lip and pressed on. “Do not let this man's life be the gate-price: open the door!”

For a long moment there was no sound, then the scraping of bolts and bars being drawn back sounded through the door. Giles stared at him.

“
Be ready
,” Eamon mouthed. He knew that almost as soon as the gate opened, and certainly as soon as he and Giles were within,
the keepers would realize their mistake. His heart pounded as they waited, shivering.

As the postern opened, Eamon caught sight of a pale face squinting into the shadow of the gate. He did not, and could not, permit the man to look for longer than a second. He pushed swiftly through the door. Giles was at his side, staggering a little to maintain the façade of injury.

They were inside the gate less than a few seconds before the guards prepared to close the postern again, and a couple of men came forwards to inspect Giles' injury. The first man grew pale.

“You're not injured –”

He did not have the time to say another word. Giles tore himself away from the thresholder's grasp, swung his sword, and downed the first man. Eamon hefted his blade. The yard echoed to the cry:

“
Snakes! Snakes at the North Gate!
”

Eamon pressed through the small group of men about him. Some attacked but were cut down at once as Eamon and Giles forced on; others fled while shouting that the gate was breached. That same cry echoed throughout the quarters of the city. Only the officer, a stout lieutenant, remained to face them. He yelled and hurled himself over the bodies of his fallen men towards Eamon. Eamon met the oncoming blow and twisted it into a lethal strike.

Before he had been inside the city half a minute he had beaten and killed half a dozen men.

“Giles?” he cried, whirling from his last opponent.

“Here.” Giles came forward, grim and bloody, and Eamon supposed that did not cut a better figure himself. Giles arched one shoulder back for a moment and then looked at Eamon again. “Can I get rid of this, now?” he asked pointing to the jacket.

“Yes.”

Their moment of respite passed; more thresholders poured into the street. They bore their weapons bravely. Whether this gesture came from their own will, or that of the Gauntlet and Hands
behind them, was difficult to tell, but each man cried defiance at the Serpent.

Eamon and Giles tensed and prepared to receive the new threat. Even as the reinforcements lined up to defend the breached postern, arrows hissed from the gate.

A few thresholders fell at once, their scant jerkins no protection against the arrows of the hobilars. The hobilars streamed through the gate on foot. The first men went immediately into the gatehouse, and moments later the whole North Gate began to swing open. At Eamon's signal, fifteen hundred soldiers made for the gate.

It was too much for the thresholders: they turned and fled. Some were shot down, while others reached the safety of the adjoining narrow streets.

His men were pouring through the gate. “Secure the gatehouses and the walls!” Eamon commanded.

The Easters and hobilars knew their trade well. Dozens of men climbed the walls. The thresholders screamed as they fled. Eamon directed groups of men to swarm along the base of the walls and spread out along them into the city. Scouts ran ahead of them, calling as other men made their way up into the nearby buildings, securing them for the King.

After a few minutes the first scouts returned, giving news that they could press forward. Eamon dispatched groups out into the North and East Quarters. The men went through the side streets, claiming buildings and roads from what defenders remained.

Eamon looked ahead. Coronet Rise loomed before him, rising up into the heart of Dunthruik. Not long later he led his own men along it.

The broad paving stones met each beat of his feet as he went, driving him on like a drum. Every building they passed was quickly and vigorously searched. Men went along the rooftops and into each narrow alley and called to each other. Eamon's ears filled with screams and cries. All over the city the thresholders fled. Few remained to meet the King's men. Many doors and homes were
blockaded but that presented the wayfarers with little difficulty.

They pressed on, cutting through the web of Dunthruik with their bright blades. Eamon knew that it was not far to the Four Quarters – he had made the journey hundreds of times. Yet somehow the city's heart had never seemed further from him than that moment where he charged through its streets to meet it.

There was noise ahead. At first Eamon could not imagine what it might be. When he at last discerned it clearly, he wondered if his mind played him a cruel jest. Soon scouts returned with confirmation on their lips of what Eamon had so incredulously surmised: knights.

Shapes appeared on the road before them; the riders deployed proudly. The cobbles rang beneath their horses' hooves. The whole breadth of Coronet Rise before them filled with knights. Their armour gleamed. It showed dinned and tainted by the battle they had already fought that morning, but still it shone.

Eamon stared at them. He knew but little about horsemanship and even less about the ways of Dunthruik's knights, but even he knew that it would be folly to attempt a cavalry charge in the city's narrow streets: the narrowness would be deadly to horse and man and both sides. It was suicidal. But he also knew too well the grim and injured pride of Rocell's knights, and knew that such arrogance would drive them on even into such folly as a charge.

He was not the only one who thought it. “They wouldn't!” Giles cried, his voice strained.

“They would,” Eamon answered. “King's men!”

Eamon had the time to form his own men into a receiving line before the leading knight raised his hand. The man yelled something Eamon could not hear, then drove his spurs to his horse's bloodstained flanks. The knights' line, six men across, came on in a fury of swearing, shouting men, and champing horses. Eamon could not tell how deep they rode.

The knights' faces were lurid and fearsome, but their tight formation soon broke. Before the knights had come close, the King's men loosed
several volleys of arrows into the churning ranks. The horses lost their momentum and some of the knights their chargers. Eamon saw one horse go down with a horrific scream. It should have taken others with it as it fell but was ridden over by the superbly trained beasts of the throned's cavalry. Nevertheless the creature's flailing body contributed to the agonizing dampening of the knights' intended glory. As they came closer some of the King's men took to the alleys and side streets to remove themselves from the brunt of the charge.

Whatever hope they had of spearing down the King's men was lost in the cramped confines of the streets. Unable to maintain their pace, and unable to manoeuvre or turn to the side, they had only one attempt to charge down on Eamon's troops, and it was feeble at best. Eamon easily ducked under a thrust as the first knight came at him. As he leapt back, Eamon turned his great sword into the horse's belly. The beast screamed and fell, throwing its rider. Giles leapt upon the knight and stabbed down into the exposed opening between the visor's slits as the rider struggled to his feet; a fountain of blood erupted about Giles's blade. Eamon did not know how many of his own men had fallen, but all over the narrow road knights were unhorsed and slaughtered.

Eamon turned just as a knight sprang at him and brought his sword down in a fierce strike at Eamon's helmet. Eamon stepped to the side and slashed through his visor.

Eamon wrenched his sword free and gave a sickened cry as he met his next assailant. He downed him as swiftly as he had the first.

No more came. Turning from his bloody work, Eamon saw knights unhorsed and panicked horses. The remaining knights were drawing together in a ragged mess in the road. They raised their hands and voices at once.

“Mercy!”

Eamon made his way to the knights. As he approached, one tore off his helmet and cast it aside before kneeling down among the bloody stones. “Lord Goodman, mercy!” he called. His face was plastered with sweat.

“Mercy?” Giles growled, disgusted. The man's hands flexed about his hilt. “
Mercy!
What mercy do you deserve?”

“Giles,” Eamon said sharply.

As though startled from a dream, the man looked across at him. At a nod from Eamon, Giles stepped back.

Eamon turned to some of the hobilars with him. “Have them contained,” he commanded. There were perhaps a hundred knights up and down the road, dozens dead. “They will be held as prisoners. The rest of us will go on.”

Leaving the knights in the care of some of the hobilars, Eamon gathered together his men once more. Some had been lost in meeting the knights, but there was no time to tend to the fallen. Eamon wondered grimly whether the corpses of the knights and King's men would be looted or violated in the bloody wilderness of Dunthruik's streets.

Pausing only to clean some of the blood from his blade, he turned and led his force deeper along Coronet Rise.