Xixian arrows flew toward them from all directions. Three of the Changing tribe fell like dropped grain sacks, and another beast-man arched his back and stumbled with a shriek of agony—a cry like something wild having its heart ripped out that made Barrick flinch badly, though he was nowhere close.
Suddenly the world broke apart around him, or seemed to, as if it had been smashed like a plate thrown against the hearth. Barrick’s ears seemed to have been pierced by white-hot needles; when he could think again he could hear nothing but a high-pitched hum and the faint murmur of Hammerfoot. The giant crouched only a short distance away, but to Barrick’s ears the creature’s powerful voice seemed as small as a mouse’s, scarcely to be heard above the thumping of the cannons.
Hammerfoot brushed dirt and chips of stone from his skin. “Earth’s blood—the Xixy-men are bringing up two more of their cursed guns.” The Deep Ettin seemed more annoyed by this than fearful. “They will just keep setting sparks to them until they smash us into powder.…”
Another huge thump of sound and the cavern shook again, hard. Debris rained down from the ceiling, and rocks rattled harshly on Barrick’s helmet as though a bullying hand smacked him over and over. Dizzy, spitting blood and wet dust, he shoved himself back against the cavern wall and watched the last stones patter down onto the ground in front of him. He was frightened but not much surprised by this world of ringing silence. Every song the People sang was about defeat and honorable death; now they had earned what they sought, what they believed in. And whether he was one of them or not, he seemed to have earned the same thing.
The world convulsed again. This time, darkness followed.
In all the years that her father and Shaso had talked about it, in all the courtly tales she had read about of bravery and daring, nothing had prepared Briony Eddon for the truth of war. All was chaos—shouting, flying arrows, blood splashing like water—and if both armies had been human, there would have been no way to pick out friend from foe. As it was, even before she struck a blow, Briony was already struggling to remember that the creatures who appeared to be the stuff of nightmares were her allies, or at least were fighting against the same enemy, the warriors of Xis. Things that crouched and snarled like apes or bears but wore armor, others that leaped like insects, crossing a dozen yards in a single bound to strike with slender, needle-sharp spears, some creatures wrapped so thoroughly in flapping, dark cloth that she could see nothing of them but a glint like fire where their faces should be—it was as though the painted margins of Father Timoid’s ancient prayer books had come to life, spilling demons and monstrosities out into the air of the world.
The Temple Dogs’ initial charge had cut deep into the Xixians as they rushed to keep the rest of the invading Qar trapped in the cave just south of the camp. Shortly, though, their resistance had stiffened and now Briony could see that Eneas’ troops would have to fight their way back out of a crowd of southerners, who surrounded them almost completely. More Xixians were on their way as well, fumbling themselves into their battle gear as they hurried to the fight. Three of the Xixian cannons had now been turned away from the walls of Southmarch and trained instead on the cavern entrance where the Qar had emerged. The big guns boomed and spat fire, each shot smashing more of the base of the hill around that cavern entrance into rubble and smoke and dust.
At the moment, Briony was in comparatively less danger, as long as she kept her head down—in the center of Eneas’ men, surrounded on all sides by able riders who had fallen back into close formation and with their spears and shields were contesting the Xixians, who were mostly on foot. Only Eneas and a few others at the outer edge of the fighting had discarded spears in favor of their swords or axes. Briony watched Eneas defeat two foot soldiers in a matter of moments, using his shield to deflect the spear thrust of one before staving in the man’s helmet with a sword blow, then stabbing the second in his gorge. As the man fell, blood already sheeting onto his chest, Briony had to look away—not because of the Xixian, but because watching Eneas risking his life was almost as painful as finding her father and being helpless to free him.
One of the Temple Dogs near her was in trouble. His foot had slipped from the stirrup; as he struggled to stay in the saddle, a pair of Xixians were trying to pull him down. Briony spurred forward. Growing up, she had tilted more than a few times at the quintain—it was one of the first times her father took her side in a dispute with Shaso over what she should be allowed to do—but the short spear that the Syannese armorer had given her was nothing like a tilting-lance. It was so light that she almost felt she should swing it like one of the bulrush swords of her childhood duels with Barrick; as she reached the struggle, she jabbed it hard at the nearest man and caught him just at the juncture of his armpit and chest. It sank in several inches, mostly because of the power of her horse, and the screaming man spun away from her Syannese ally. An instant later, the horse of another mounted Temple Dog trampled the wounded Xixian into silence.
The second southerner had been distracted by the screamer’s fate; when Briony reined her horse up and then spurred back toward him, his eyes widened. He let go of the Syannese knight’s arm and mail shirt, flung up his shield to take Briony’s spear, and narrowly missed stabbing her in turn as she went past him. The knight she had come to help found his stirrup and, once righted, was soon belaboring the man with heavy sword blows. Another Temple Dog rode up and hacked at the base of the Xixian’s neck before he even saw the new threat. The man fell heavily to the ground in a pool of blood and mud, his head only partially attached to his body.
It was fighting. Real fighting, bloody, dreadful fighting, the kind that Shaso had taught her about but she had never actually known. It was terrifying. It was astounding, too, but mostly it was terrifying. She had been a fool to join in, and now she could not escape it. This was not a song, not a poem; it was blood and shit and shrieking men and screaming horses.
Heart hammering, wild as a rabbit in a trap, Briony Eddon concentrated every bit of her thought and skill on staying alive.
A man was on top of her, his knee pressing her sword back toward her chest. She didn’t quite remember how it had happened—something striking her from behind, a stumble, a slip, then this fellow out of nowhere—but it didn’t matter: in another few moments he was going to get his dagger out of his belt and he was going to kill her, and she wasn’t strong enough to stop him. Nothing in her life so far—not her family, not her royal blood or her princely protector, not even the demigoddess—could save her. Briony struggled to push back on the sword, to keep the man’s hands busy, although it felt like her arms were breaking. The Xixian hung over her in bizarre intimacy, mumbling words she could not understand, sweat dripping from his face onto hers. His gritted teeth, the mustaches like two horsetails, the huge whites of his bulging eyes, made his face a Zosimia demon-mask.
Something swooped past her head, a flicker of shadow as though someone had waved a hand in front of the sun. The pressure on her chest suddenly changed as the man rocked back, clapping his hand to his face. A moment later, he let out a strange grunt and slid limply off her.
Briony rolled over, gasping as she fought to get her breath back, then remembered her vulnerability, unhorsed in the middle of a battle. As she struggled onto her hands and knees, she caught sight of the body of the Xixian who had been trying to kill her, his tongue half out of his mouth and already swollen. An entire garden of slender needles protruded from his eyes. Needles with feathers on them.