Sasha saw Bergen locked in battle with two more, neither of whom were facing her, and steered her horse for a fast lunge through traffic to put her sword through one's back. Bergen killed the other, then drove a third from his saddle with a lunge of his shield.
The battleground was becoming crowded with horses, many riderless, all rearing, dodging, and scampering in the confusion of falling rain and flying arrows. But Sasha caught a glimpse up the trail, and saw it filled with incoming Kazeri. The numbers were overwhelming.
Suddenly the air was thick with arrows, as though the rain itself had turned deadly. Incoming Kazeri fell five and six at a time, then more as the arrows repeated. Cries of battle turned to cries of fear as those remaining turned and fled up the mountain trail. The arrows were coming from the guard post, Sasha realised, and the wall itself.
Finally the yelling stopped. Sasha made a fast check of her companions. Aisha had fallen when her horse had slipped, and suffered bruises and cuts. Arendelle had a cut on his upper arm, bleeding thickly but easily treated. Those two had been most fortunate, having been in the face of that off-trail charge. The rest of them were unscathed…even Yasmyn, who was exultant.
Fully thirty-five Kazeri lay dead or dying, half of those in that final volley of arrows from the walls. Sasha could not fault their enthusiasm, but felt less charitable of their tactics. It was almost as though they'd never seen archery before.
Kiel dismounted to retrieve arrows they could ill afford to waste. At one body, he signalled to Rhillian. “See? What futility is this ‘mercy’ you practise, with people such as these?”
Rhillian and Sasha rode to see. The body was that of a boy, no more than fourteen. His eyes were unblinking as the rain fell into his face, his forehead scarred from the recent blow of the hilt of Sasha's sword.
“We killed him fair,” Rhillian said coolly.
“And to what greater moral purpose is mercy,” Kiel asked in bemusement, “if its most immediate function is merely to help you sleep better at night?”
“I like my sleep,” said Rhillian, moving her horse away.
Sasha looked down at the young, lifeless face, and thought that her sleep had not been helped at all.
The gates shuddered and creaked, opening slowly on massive hinges. A man in armour walked out, wearing a red surcoat and crested helm. He had the build of a warrior.
Rhillian dismounted for politeness, and shook the man's extended hand.
“Apologies for being late,” said the man in Saalsi. Sasha was only a little surprised-the Ilduuri were as familiar with serrin as Enorans or Rhodaanis. “We had a small disagreement behind our wall.”
“Indeed,” said Rhillian, with a Saalsi word that was both statement and question.
The Steel officer looked embarrassed and unhappy. “Best you don't ask too loudly,” he said. “Please, my apologies to you and your friends, we'll try to get you across the bridge with no more problems.”
Sasha dismounted to Rhillian's side, and they exchanged a glance. No more problems? “Who exactly controls this guard post anyhow?” Sasha murmured in Lenay.
“Be polite,” Rhillian replied in the same, “but stay wary.”
Aisha joined the Steel soldiers helping Daish to his feet, as the others walked their horses through the gates. Sasha looked back up at the wall parapet from this side and saw twelve men there, all with serrin-type longbows. The other men there made for perhaps twenty-five border guards. The tower did not look large enough to accommodate them all, and there was only stabling for ten horses at most. Probably the others came from the building across the bridge.
Before the tower walls, a furious argument was in progress. A man in a green cloak was shouting at a soldier whose helm crest suggested to Sasha he might be an officer. The soldier stood sullenly in the rain, and cast the odd glance at the new arrivals as his more elegantly attired superior ranted in Ilduuri. Sasha and her companions exchanged glances, as Aisha escorted Daish to the cover of a stable berth.
“Nasi-Keth,” said the man who had let them in, with distaste. Sasha blinked at him. The green-cloaked man did not look Nasi-Keth. Was there a sword on his back beneath that cloak?
“They're different here,” Rhillian explained for Sasha's benefit. “They belong to the Remischtuul.” The Ilduuri ruling Council, that was, as nearly as anyone had explained it to Sasha's understanding. “They take their initial teachings from Saalshen, as do all Nasi-Keth, but their loyalty is to Ilduur. We try to be nice to them, but they don't truly care what serrin think.”
Sasha had heard that there was no Mahl'rhen in Ilduur, no house of the serrin, to represent the interests of Saalshen, and promote amity between serrin and human. Two centuries before, Saalshen had abolished feudalism here as in Enora and Rhodaan, and Ilduur had flourished as greatly as had its Saalshen Bacosh neighbours. So successful had Ilduur been, and so peaceable toward its new serrin administrators, that Saalshen's attention moved to the more pressing problems of religion, education, and crop yields in bigger, more populous Enora and Rhodaan. Failure there would have brought real problems for Saalshen, as only the Ipshaal separated humans there from serrin to the east. Ilduur, safe within its mountain walls, had withdrawn to manage its own affairs, and say pleasant things to visiting emissaries, and make pledges of treaty and mutual support-anything to keep the foreigners happy, and out of Ilduuri affairs.
But one would be foolish to actually trust that the Ilduuri cared enough for their foreign allies to send help in the event of actual need. Some had been foolish, and now learned the price.
Aisha left Daish in the hands of Ilduuri guards, and came over. “He's berating the captain for helping us,” Aisha translated for them. “He ordered the captain not to help us. The captain obeyed until the Kazeri attacked, then disobeyed. The captain is now to be…castaanti.” She frowned. “I've not heard that word.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, like castaantala, as in tribunal. He'll be hauled before a hearing of superiors. I imagine that's serious?”
She looked askance at the soldier nearby. He nodded grimly. “Very serious. Likely they'll hang him.”
“For helping us?” Rhillian asked in disbelief.
“For endangering Ilduur by involving her unnecessarily in foreign affairs and disturbances.” There was flat irony to the soldier's voice. “Gone crazy, all of them. Crazy with fear, fucking cowards.” He spat. “The Ilduuri Steel would have marched, my friends. Most of us. But the Remischtuul says no, and the Steel follow orders. We let you down. Ilduur has shamed herself, and our leaders do not care.”
Rhillian's emerald stare was intense. She put a hand on the man's shoulder. “Do all the Steel feel as you do?”
“Not all, but most. We want to fight this Regent. No good comes from letting Rhodaan and Enora fall, let alone Saalshen-we all know that's his true and final goal. But the people who join the Steel are not those who join the Remischtuul. You'll see, when you get to Andal.”
Rhillian nodded. “Then we have not wasted our journey to come here after all.”
The Ilduuri Nasi-Keth finally had enough of berating the captain and stalked over. He glared at the new arrivals.
“So,” he said, also in Saalsi. “Now that you're here, I shall have to interrogate you. We cannot allow just anyone to enter Ilduur.”
“I am talmaad of Saalshen,” said Rhillian, “as are three others of our party. The others are Enoran, Rhodaani, and their allies. We are friends of Ilduur.”
“Friends,” the Nasi-Keth snorted. “You bring war to our gates. Ilduur needs no friends like you.”