“We serrin call it debate, if we're not impossibly thin-skinned…”
“And then you point in triumph, and say, ‘Look! She doesn't understand me! My arguments are fulfilled!’”
“Would you ever choose to be without the vel'ennar, Aisha?”
“No.” Decisively.
“Why not?”
Aisha did not reply.
“The vel'ennar is about inclusion, Aisha. You fear you wouldn't fit in. I'm telling you you're right. I was farmed out to an old uman on the verge of death, when I was still a child. No one else could understand me, they said. She was bitter and cynical. I am not so bitter yet. But as time goes on, I see that perhaps she was right. There is no place for those without vel'ennar in a society whose entire ethos is inclusion. As there is no place for animals on two legs amongst those who walk on four.”
Aisha placed a gentle hand on his brow and brushed back his untidy hair. “It hasn't been that bad amongst us, surely?” she asked sadly.
Errollyn took a deep breath and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “The worst thing,” he said quietly, “is that I can love you all as much as I'll ever love anyone…and yet I know that what other serrin feel for me is less than what they feel for others.”
“Oh Errollyn,” Aisha said gently, taking his face in both hands. “It's not like that at all. You said it yourself, you do not need to feel vel'ennar in order to be a part of someone else's! If humans can be within a serrin's vel'ennar, then surely you can be too!”
“Then why am I chained to the mast?”
Aisha closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Errollyn's.
“And why have I somehow felt, my entire life, that it was always coming to this?”
“You're overreacting,” Aisha assured him gently.
“Kiel wanted to kill me,” Errollyn murmured, repressing a shiver. “I saw it in his eyes.”
“He's upset.” Aisha sounded unsettled.
“He's dangerous. He's what we could become, Aisha. All of us. His logic is impeccable. He embodies the truest heart of what it means to be serrin. And he is capable of barbarism, like what he did to the archbishop. He is our future, Aisha, if we allow it. And Rhillian walks his path more and more every day.”
Aisha kissed the younger man on the forehead with great affection. “Be strong Errollyn. Know that however lonely you may feel, you are never truly alone. I love you as a brother.”
“Then let me free.”
“I can't,” she said simply.
“Then our friendship has limits.”
Aisha's eyes filled with tears. She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, then stared at the dark hullside, and piles of surrounding cargo.
“Here,” she said, finally unwrapping her bundle and revealing a plate of fresh fruit and cheese. “Open wide. Try not to spill any, this is excellent quality.”
The Pazira shields made a line so hard and tall that the fight had become more like wrestling than swordwork.
“Push!” Captain Faldini yelled, in unison with a heaving grunt from the front line. Men leaned into their shields like sailors into a howling gale, boots scrabbling on the debris-strewn cobbles for balance. On the flanks, men held shields over their heads, trying to give protection from the archers firing down from the mansion wall. The front gate had collapsed when the first thrust had thrown hooks over it and run the ropes down to the draught horses downslope…archers had tried to sever the ropes with crossbow fire, but the ropes were too thick. Oilfire had been wasted trying to burn the ropes, but it went out too quickly, and ropes did not burn without encouragement. Now the mansion's defenders were out of oilfire, and without half a wall and half a gate. Cityfolk built defences for city threats, and forgot how powerful four enormous country plough-pullers yoked together could be. The top of the wall lay smashed across the road, one gate hanging askew. Beyond this mansion (whose ever it was, Faldini neither knew nor cared) lay the mouth to Sharptooth, and glory for Pazira.
Sword and spear thrusts found the edges of the shields, men pushed sideon, keeping their bodies as narrow as possible to that threat. The rank behind pushed in turn upon the front rank's backs, and thrust with spears and swords over the top of the shield wall.
The man directly before Faldini fell to a crossbow bolt from the wall. Faldini leapt over him into the second rank, and put his shoulder into the back of the man ahead's breastplate, wielded his spear high for space, and waited for one of those on the shield wall's other side to raise his head. None did, but one of their second rank tried a spear thrust that deflected off the shields. Faldini noted where it had come from, leapt and thrust his own spear…it made firm contact, grating on metal, and seemed to stick. Someone screamed, one more scream above the animal grunts and groans of men, the clash of steel and the howls of the wounded.
“You city-bred, perfumed sister-fuckers have never seen a real war!” Faldini roared. “Die screaming, you arselickers!” Something crashed off his helm. They pushed some more and the line crept forward another arm's length, then another. The broken gate hung barely fifteen paces more down the road, and their enemies were now struggling for footing on smashed rock from the wall.
A man behind him took a bolt through the neck and fell…Faldini glared up in time to see the bowman crouch back down behind his battlement. “Georgi!” he yelled, still pushing, searching around him in the crush…and he saw the lad, aiming his crossbow up past the defensive shields. He fired, and a man atop the wall took a bolt through the face. “Good lad! Soldier, grab Georgi for me!”
He was moving backward now, his back to the shieldman, pushing hard while looking behind. Hands grabbed the young crossbowman and shoved him through the armoured crush.
“Give me that, I'll help you…” Faldini shouldered his spear, grabbed the crossbow's winch handles and began winding fast. Georgi fumbled in his pouch for a new bolt…a shot from the wall struck a man's breastplate. A spear thrust jabbed past Faldini's shoulder and hit Georgi in the chest…Faldini grabbed it and pulled sharply down. On the other end, the spear's owner tried to pull back down, reaching upward, and with a yell, a Pazira spearman took that chance to kill him. Georgi had only been knocked back into the man behind, and was now bending trying to recover his fallen bolt…“Get another one!” Faldini hauled up the crossbow and handed it to the lad. Georgi grabbed it, fitted a new bolt, his freckled face anxious beneath the rim of his steel helm. “Aim on my shoulder, I'll point him to you!”
Faldini turned, felt the clank as Georgi rested the crossbow on his shoulder…a surge of pushing and suddenly everyone was going sideways, Georgi struggling for balance. Then the crossbowman raised his head once more above the parapet, a new bolt fitted. “That's the swine!” Faldini roared, pointing straight. “Kill him!”
The crossbow thumped against Faldini's shoulder, and the man atop the wall fell reeling, a bolt beneath his jaw. Faldini howled triumph. Suddenly the shield wall surged forward several places, several defenders falling on the loose footing. The shieldmen ran over the top of them, and the second rank killed them where they lay. An uneven gap opened to Faldini's left between two shields and Faldini switched his spear to the backhand, took a sighting and thrust hard at the first target he saw. It deflected off a city man's smaller shield, but rocked him backward. Faldini dropped his spear and charged through the gap, pulling his short sword and driving it through an unsuspecting man's neck. He reversed right, dropping low to slice through the back of another shieldsman's leg. The man he'd tried to spear attacked, Faldini grappled him bodily, and they both lost balance on the sliding stones. Suddenly free of opponents, his own shieldsmen were surging forward, trampling their captain to make ground over the stones.