If it was making me jumpy, it was terrifying the horses. Guard animals they might be, but they’d never had to experience a war, and panic was spreading rapidly through their ranks. Approaching a bend, Alvantes signalled us to halt and called, “We’ll dismount here.”
We hurried to alight and I cautiously tethered my steed, for the expression in his large and too-white eyes told me he’d much rather be galloping in the other direction. “You and me both,” I muttered, as I tied off a last knot.
By the time I had him secured to my satisfaction, the others were already hurrying on. I dashed to catch up. As we careened around the bend, the northwestern gate came into view — and for all that I thought I knew what to expect, my jaw still fell open.
The gates were wide open, their inner edges broken and splintered. Perhaps that was small wonder, for there was only so much that could be done to repair a portal so recently smashed, especially in a city that was coming apart at the seams. And just as at the palace, the gatehouse had become a focal point for the fighting, its narrow confines going some way to levelling the odds between the city’s defenders and the purple-clad soldiers pressing from outside.
All of that was shocking, without doubt. I’d never truly believed Altapasaeda could be vulnerable to any army; compared with the rest of the Castoval, it had always seemed indomitable. Yet, strange as it was to see the city under attack, it wasn’t unexpected. No, what defied my belief wasn’t the fighting already inside the walls — it was just who was fighting.
Giants. There were giants massed alongside the defenders. And in case I tried to convince myself it was a trick, a scam like the one I’d once conceived myself, they were wearing armour made ready to their scale and bearing weapons, great spiked hammers each as tall as a small tree, and they were using those weapons, sweeping bloody swathes through the men crowding into the breach.
I realised too late what was about to happen, what was bound to happen, and I was already asking myself what I could possibly do to stop Saltlick when he thundered past me. He was roaring a word in giantish, over and over and over — and though I couldn’t understand, though it was reduced to sheer noise by rage and grief and buried in the crash of his feet, I was sure I knew exactly what he was saying.
No! No! No!
Then Saltlick was amidst the fighting, men diving and stumbling to get out of his way, and he was forcing himself into the very heart of the violence, like a surgeon’s knife plunged into a canker. His brethren looked astonished to see him, and cowed. He snatched a hammer from one and hurled it as if it were a twig; it struck the wall and lodged there, its head a hand deep in the spider-webbed stone. Another followed after, scattering cobbles, a dozen men tumbling to avoid its impact.
It was clear now that most of those pressed in the gatehouse were Pasaedans, and that the giants had been the only thing keeping them out of the city. With our attackers’ initial alarm beginning to pass, they seemed more unsure than afraid. It must be dawning on them that Saltlick, still busy plucking and discarding hammers, wasn’t simply another foe. In fact, wasn’t he aiding rather than hindering their assault? He’d disarmed most of the other giants by then, meeting no resistance — for they stood like sleepwalkers as he tore the weapons from their hands. Not only that but, unlike those others, Saltlick wore no armour. And while he might be doing the Pasaedans a favour, he still stood between them and their goal…
The first blow was hesitant, barely a prick. A soldier poked his sword at Saltlick’s calf, as if he expected the weapon to burst into flames the moment it made contact. When it didn’t, he looked more amazed than he had already. But that didn’t stop him from trying again, less delicately this time — and that was all the encouragement it took for those nearby to mimic his example.
Saltlick staggered. He glanced around him, as if dazed. The other giants were all unarmed now, but they weren’t backing off, were making no effort to disengage from the fighting — and I realised that nothing else would make Saltlick retreat.
I wanted to scream at them, but it was as though my tongue had swollen and clogged my throat. Anyway, by then it was already too late.
Because in that moment, Saltlick went down.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I watched it happen. I didn’t believe it.
Not one man there reached past Saltlick’s waist. They were mere men and he was a giant, and even as their swords fell against his flesh, it was impossible to imagine they could hurt him — really hurt him. And maybe if he hadn’t been wounded, half crippled by his spell underground and far past the point of exhaustion, they never could have. But Saltlick was all of those things — and as much as I refused to believe, still, I watched him fall.
Once he was on his knees, that made things easier for his attackers — though, more concerned with avoiding being crushed by his bulk, they were slow to appreciate the fact at first. It was only a brief reprieve, however; just as long as it took them to realise that a defenceless giant on all fours was even less of a threat than one standing.
By then, the Pasaedans could have simply gone around Saltlick, could have charged past all the giants had they wished to. It would have been the sensible, the tactical thing to do, and surely the fact that they didn’t had much to do with the brutal losses they’d just endured. In a mass, they closed upon Saltlick.
There was only one thing I could think to do. I grabbed Alvantes by a bunch of his shirt, shook him hard as I could, and — though I couldn’t quite believe what I was doing, though a part of me was already curling up in terror — I screamed in his face, “Damn you, get him out of there, you bastard! Do it now! You won’t let him die, you son of a bitch…”
That was as far as I got before Alvantes wrenched free and pushed me to the ground, none too gently. I fully expected his sword to follow — and in that moment, I didn’t care. Because behind me they were killing Saltlick, and I couldn’t let that happen.
I was on my feet before Alvantes knew it and went to grab him again, which was a mistake. All it earned me was a fist slammed hard into my jaw. It felt like he’d struck me with a sledgehammer, and I was sure I’d fall and never get up; but something inside me pushed back and, driven by I knew not what, I only teetered and lurched once more towards him. “You save him,” I hissed, “or so help me, you’ll have to kill me here and now.”
“I can’t, Damasco.” I was brought up short by the grief in his voice. “Look around you. Will you just look?”
I didn’t want to look. I knew too well what was happening. Worse, I could hear it. Yet to not look was to give up, and I couldn’t do that either. Starting to turn, I saw Estrada first, staring past my shoulder. Tears were streaming down her face. “Saltlick,” she was saying, her voice on the edge of breaking. “Saltlick, Saltlick…”
Where Saltlick had been, there were now only Pasaedan soldiers. The only clue to where he’d fallen was that their blows were all landing in one place. The Pasaedans were everywhere now, well past the border of the gatehouse. All that kept them from overrunning us was the effort of ending Saltlick’s life.
I understood what Alvantes had said — and as I looked back, I understood too the helplessness in his eyes.
Perhaps he misread my own expression though, saw condemnation where there was only despair. “What can I do, Damasco?” he shouted. “We can’t save him!”
I understood. But I couldn’t accept it. Saltlick was the only true friend I’d ever had, the only one who’d ever shown me real decency and asked for no recompense. I had to do something, and there was nothing at all I could do. My knees were weak, so I sank onto them.