The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (91 page)

South.

CHAPTER 58

“Y
our Highness, I implore you,” Bart wailed. “Please listen. Empress Amalia is willing to negotiate.”

Sergei’s face was stern, all wrinkles and shadows of fatigue. “I know she is. She knows she cannot win this war and is now trying to save her neck. But it will not be. The attack will continue. Now, Count, go away. You are dismissed.”

The audience around the Parusite king consisted of recently freed noblemen and high-ranking officials from both Eracia and Caytor. They had come to ask the king to halt his campaign and let talks take place instead. Sympathy for their captor, the king thought. He had heard that happened quite often. Your mind tried to reason out the constant risk of death by taking a side, and there was only one side for hostages.

Sergei knew he held the fate of the realms in his palm. His decision would shape the coming year, and maybe the coming decade.

As a man who had accepted the terrible cost of this war, Sergei could not look back.

Sergei wondered what his father might have thought when he’d led the nation to shame, riding at the head of the cavalry column, thundering across frozen fields toward a city that was the seat of ungodliness. The price was so terribly high for himself, his firstborn. But if he surrendered now, Parus would vanish from the realms. It would become an irrelevant nest of religious fools fighting for their scrap of desert rock. That must not happen.

The king flicked his fingers. The guards stepped forward and cleared the house. Bart spared the large hovel a last glance as he was pushed out into the cold, his withering hope and glowing anger mixing into a swirling, boiling pressure point in the center of his forehead. Sasha was poised over a map, holding a large wooden ruler, measuring, her lips moving with silent calculations. Captain Speinbate had earned his place in the hovel, having been injured in the last attack. His golden teeth gleamed in the lamplight. Archdukes Nikolai and Oleg were discussing the engagement of the north flank, arguing in a restrained, polite manner. Genrik was there, too, of course, ready to etch history in black, merciless ink.

And then, the door closed on the count.

“Let me talk to His Highness,” Duke Vincent growled, trying to push through the crowd.

Luckily for him, more sensible people held him back. Bart stood aside, not interfering.

In this strange, surreal moment, in the pitch black of a midwinter night, the lifelong adversaries shared a common goal. Caytoreans, Eracians, standing together in a hostile camp, concerned with what their host was going to do more than their fickle fate right now. Yes, they had been freed, alive and unharmed. Wasn’t that what they had all wanted?

Freed from one captivity—into another. It was not what they had all wanted.

They understood all too well the implications of the fall of Athesia and the deep gap that would be filled with the masses of Parusite troops, well trained, hardened, righteous, and feeling invincible. Bart had come to avert this war. Instead, he was watching helplessly. The night sky above him was purple, cloudless. It would turn out to be a lovely day, he thought.

The Parusite camp was quiet, despite the preparations for battle. Men went quietly about it, donning leather gloves before touching frosted armor, greasing their noses and cheeks and ears, padding themselves in wool and fur before slipping on heavy coats of mail.

The sound of chaos yawning, stirring.

“This will not go down well,” Count Derrick of Elfast said.

Bart had never liked the man, but the familiar face was a welcome respite in the cruel world of mistrust. He saw others, too, the lords and ladies. Some had taken their captivity roughly; some had compensated by putting on weight or drinking.

“What happens now?” some posh Caytorean said.

Duke Vincent snarled and retreated. Another Caytorean stood nearby. Bart thought he heard him mention some money to the grizzled aristocrat.

Bart looked around. So many people clustered, almost the entire Privy Council, a smattering of Leopold’s cousins, men who preceded Bart in rank and would now try to take over and ruin his hard work. Quite a few women, mostly Caytorean ladies, chatting loudly. The count realized the dignitaries from the two realms were talking to one another with far too much intimacy and ease than he would have expected, which made him worried even more than he’d let Commander Gerald and his friends know. He could only imagine the political damage this captivity had bred.

So what happens next?

“We wait,” Bart whispered.

“What’s happening?” Gerald asked the frightened messenger as he walked toward the battlements. The man was trying to keep up, but he was already winded from his earlier run. The horns would not stop screaming.

Soldiers shuffled by, lugging buckets of pitch and oil, hauling big swaths of hay. Crossbowmen were leaning against the crenelations, waiting. For them, there was little else to do. After a thousand steps and walkways, Gerald climbed to the top of the curtain wall above the South Gate. One of the officers handed him a looking glass, but there was really no need. He could see the lumbering machines with his naked eye.

They were simple, unimpressive—just huge, wide ramps with a sheltered bottom where dozens of oxen could pull on the huge wheels. They moved slowly, but they had started their journey under the cover of darkness and would get near the city soon. Rivers of Parusite soldiers moved behind them, waiting.

“Get Master Reese here, right now!” he ordered the messenger. The man saluted and sped away.

“What are those things, sir?” an officer asked. His voice trembled. He looked young.

“Loading ramps with a shallow incline.”
But good enough for ten soldiers to walk abreast
. He could see the risk already. The enemy need not bother trying to tear down the gates with large chains pulled by those enormous beasts. Or send sappers to mine under the foundations. Or have waves of humans crash like bloody waves against the city defenses. They just needed to bring those things in contact with the curtain wall and have the horde of soldiers climb comfortably. Much better than ladders, much more effective than towers.

They lumbered on. It would take them maybe another two hours before they got to the city. They would probably be exposed to artillery fire for almost half that time. But they looked sturdy, made of large logs, covered in tar and hides and even metal plating, anything that would fend off missiles and fire.

Gerald looked around him. Soldiers were watching anxiously, cursing or laughing with fear.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this
, he thought miserably.

He thought of Amalia. He wanted to be with her now, to protect her. The best he could do was make sure the Parusites never breached the defenses. So, he stayed put and began barking orders.

“People stay indoors. No one is to leave. Every able-bodied man who can wield as much as a knife is to report to Deputy Commander Edwin for the gate defense. Get me all the archers here. When those things get into range, aim for the animals.”

The enemy was not going to make it easier for them, that was for sure. They did their old trick and moved the entire siege line inward, constricting the ring. Artillery engines started singing, and soon a rain of debris was whistling above their heads, crashing into rooftops. The fat walls held, but it was unnerving to try to endure the noise. The Fuckers returned fire, deadly, precise, bringing down catapults in a cloud of splinters and rope. The rain became a drizzle, and then, the enemy foot moved forward, all of it, all at once, clawing at the walls like starved monsters. The Borei were once again trying to dislodge the gates.

The defenders gave them all they got. Men threw down rocks, caltrops, old glass, feces, and when they ran out of ammunition, they spat. The air reeked of burned flesh and hair. The stench of oil and blood was nauseating. For a while, the city stood, endured. And then, the loading ramps came into range.

The chief engineer guided the firing with almost magical accuracy. Every single shot crashed into those huge things. Bits and pieces flew off, fell down on the heads of the soldiers and animals below. But the machines plowed on, relentlessly, through the snow, following the clear swath of land through the charred refugee city. The Athesians rose in cheers when they destroyed one of the monsters. It collapsed sideways, mashing the human carpet into pulp. The screaming drowned all other noises. But the remaining four platforms moved on.

Then, they were so close you could almost touch them.

The platforms slammed into the wall. They were of perfect height so that the soldiers stepping off the ramp could just hop down onto the walkways and engage the defenders.

The Athesians pressed close, spears and crossbows leveled. Gerald had nothing but mad admiration for the first wave of soldiers who came into view. The first row fell dead almost instantly. The second, the third, the fourth, but then the soldiers were reloading their crossbows, and the Parusites were inching closer, shields held tight, swords raised just to swat away the spears. And then, almost like a mudslide, the Parusites spilled onto the battlements. Gerald drew his own blade and charged.

One hour later, the city walls were in the enemy hands. Moments after that, the gates burst, and the city streets turned red.

He was parched. The one thing he really wanted was a drink of clear, cold water.

Gerald had never imagined a siege breaking to be so clean, so orderly. He had expected burning buildings, people running in the streets, air so acrid with smoke and ashes that your eyes burned. Instead, the enemy troops were moving through the alleys and up the roads slowly, methodically, fighting the Athesians for every corner, every doorway. Steel clanged, men groaned and hissed and grunted and died crying for their mothers, but the city remained without the epic destruction the books always told you about.

He was tired, but he could not put the sword down yet. Shoulder to shoulder, they moved crablike and backward, retreating down the corridor, a handful of ragged defenders beaten, humiliated, wounded. Gerald could not remember how he had gotten back to the palace, but this fight was the last stand.