Only… wasn’t there one slender hope? I’d already guessed that Mounteban’s horn was a summons for aid, prearranged for just such an emergency as this. I hadn’t expected it to help. Yet, though it was barely possible to make out anything over the tempest of shouts, metal chiming on metal, cries of pain and feet slopping in mud, I was aware that somewhere beyond those sounds was another, rising out of the distance. It had to be Mounteban’s relief.
I was hardly keeping count, but I thought that at least half our number were gone, dead or curled in the muck nursing awful wounds. Probably they’d each taken their share of Pasaedans with them, for these men were the best Altapasaeda had to offer, but what difference did that make? If they each killed ten, or twenty, or fifty, it would never be enough. Even if our tiny troop were invulnerable, they could hack and slash all day and never reach an end of the Pasaedan numbers.
Yet the horses — as I felt sure now they must be — were getting closer. I could make out the pound of hooves, the rattle of gear, the scrape of metal on leather. Nor was I the only one listening; if the fighting hadn’t stopped, its tempo had slowed, some of the savagery gone from it. Glimpsing Pasaedan faces, I could see that they were asking the same questions I was. What was coming? Was it a few reinforcements or the entire Altapasaedan strength? Was this a rescue attempt — or the beginning of the final battle for the city?
Then, as the approaching racket gained the precise tone and volume of a rockslide tumbling towards us, the fighting really did slow to a halt. The Pasaedans, without any sign of unanimity or instruction, backed off to create a perimeter around us.
Without the imminent threat of a sword through my innards, I dared to focus on the nearest exit from the Suburbs, a plank-lined way that seemed to be source for the greatest concentration of noise. Whatever happened in the next moments would decide our fate. If Mounteban had planned a paltry rescue force, they might buy us a few minutes before they were cut down, and we with them. If he’d summoned every man, woman and child in Altapasaeda capable of holding a sword, we’d probably still be dead before sunset — but at least we’d have a chance.
I stared at that skewed alleyway so hard that my eyes watered. How many men were making that cacophony? How many horses?
Then they plunged into view — and it wasn’t horses. It was giants.
But I could easily see how I’d been mistaken, for they were dressed like no giants I’d seen. They wore makeshift armour, as during the fight for the northwestern gate. This time, however, the emphasis was different; their torsos were scantily defended, while their arms and legs were buried in a patchwork of metal and leather. The explanation for that lay in the final detail of their outfits: colossal rectangular shields lashed to their arms and each almost as high as its bearer, planks that must have exhausted entire trees bound together by bands of iron.
These giants were familiar, too — the same ones who’d defended the gate. Was this a resumption of that day’s violence, or could it be some sort of penance? Because I couldn’t help but recognise their leader as welclass="underline" even if I hadn’t learned those lumpish features by long acquaintance, I’d have known the glinting circlet hung once more around his neck.
I didn’t want to believe it. It was one thing to accept that Saltlick was on his feet, even running in armour — and the raw cuts lacing his flesh, the bandages still tight around his arms and thighs and waist, and the way that he still favoured his good leg, all testified to what the exertion must be costing him. But I knew Saltlick was brave beyond reason; that he’d wade through fire to save his friends if need be. That he would fight, though, against his most ingrained beliefs? Even to save Estrada, let alone myself? No, I wouldn’t accept that. In fact, I realised I’d sooner die myself than watch him draw blood in my defence.
Only — he wasn’t fighting. He was drawing nothing but confused stares. All he was doing — in fact all any of the giants were doing — was moving. And that might not have meant much were it not for the fact that they were giants. They were armoured, they were shielded, and their strength was prodigious. Their gentlest effort was enough to drive the Pasaedans back — for who was about to plant himself in their way, to try to halt their relentless progress? They might only be moving, but moving was enough.
Before them, the Pasaedan lines were in disarray. Yet at first it seemed that all Saltlick would achieve was to herd our enemies over us, so that I’d die in a stampede rather than at sword point. However, Alvantes had recognised the danger, drawn our survivors into a narrow wedge. The fleeing Pasaedans flurried around us, like gale-driven snow about a stubborn crag — and in their wake came the giants, visible now only as a solid, moving barrier of wood and iron.
For a terrifying moment, it seemed that we too would be swept before those colossal shields. Only at the last instant did the giants raise them, and we scrabbled hastily into the space they’d cleared. It was an outpost in the heart of enemy territory; through every chink, I could see the Pasaedans gathered beyond the shield wall. It was a fort — except that its ramparts were made as much from meat and muscle as from metal and timber.
Suddenly I wanted urgently to know what Saltlick was doing here. It had to have been Mounteban’s doing, had to relate to their mysterious meeting — but how? “Saltlick,” I bellowed. “Saltlick!”
But either he didn’t hear me or he chose not to answer.
“All right,” cried Mounteban. “Back, now… quick as you can.”
A moving fort. I couldn’t begin to guess how Mounteban had persuaded Saltlick to go along with this, to pitch himself and his fellow giants into such hopeless danger. Yet there was no denying it was a brilliant plan — and this time, Saltlick did respond. I heard him utter one harsh syllable of giantish and the giants were in motion again, edging back towards the border of the Suburbs with their shields ploughing before them.
A gap had already cleared around the giants, leaving a circle of ground churned into waves by the passage of so many feet. Beyond it, however, the Pasaedans were regrouping. If the appearance of the giants had thrown them, it was a temporary disruption at best. They’d faced this threat before, after all, and I had no doubt that the story of how Saltlick had been cut down had been bandied round night after night over the campfires. Now, every man knew that the giants could be hurt by weight of numbers — and without risk of retribution.
I looked towards the Suburbs. There too we’d been cut off. The giant-sized shields were impressive, but what would a battering ram do to those hastily bound planks? How well could they stand up against catapults or ballistae? And even if the Pasaedans chose against such dramatic shows of force, there were other ways to halt our creeping progress.
“Archers!” someone roared; I thought I recognised the steel-edged voice as Ludovoco’s. “Archers, forward. Make ready!”
It seemed I’d considered nothing our enemies hadn’t. The giants’ armour was piecemeal, concentrated towards their fronts; the Pasaedans need only fire over their heads. One arrow might be like a thorn prick to a giant, but a hundred at once?
I looked once more to the Suburbs. I could have run the remaining distance in less than a minute. At our current pace it might take ten times as long — and it was time we’d never be allowed. The enemy were clustered thickly in the gap now. No doubt they’d guessed what I knew for a fact, that Saltlick would order a halt before he’d risk hurting a single one of them.