Olio swallowed. When Areava let him go he stood straight and nodded. 'I will obey you in all things, your Majesty.'
'You have always been my strength,' she said. 'Knowing you are here will make what comes easier to bear.'
Constable Arad had almost finished inspecting the wall. Everything he had seen of the Royal Guards showed him they were determined to do their duty. They looked splendid in their blue uniforms, although the braid and cloaks and fancy helmets had all been discarded, replaced by good, strong pot helmets, round shields and breastplates. They were ready with spear and javelin and sword for anything the outlaw Prince Lynan could throw against them. For a while now they had watched the Chett cavalry slowly and cautiously wind its way down the escarpment. Arad had resisted the temptation to carry out a raid against them when they were so vulnerable because he knew there would be archers on top of the ridge ready for just such a sortie, and he had no archers of his own to counter their volleys. By midmorning there seemed to be the equivalent of six or seven regiments in the short space between the wall and the foot of the ridge. Arad could not help wishing Areava or one of her ancestors had fortified the top of the ridge instead of the city itself.
Still, he kept on telling himself, they were horse archers, not infantry, and they would not know the first thing about scaling walls. Then he remembered that the inhabitants of Daavis had probably thought exactly the same thing.
He had just under a thousand Royal Guards at his disposal for the wall, a structure half a league in length. Instead of putting them all on the walkway he kept three companies up in reserve in the centre, not far from the wall's only gate. He knew Queen Areava was arranging other reserves, but did not know what she intended to do with them.
With luck, he was telling himself, we will hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the southern provinces. It would take two or three days for the fleet to reach Storia and Lurisia, and then a day to load up with infantry and another two or three days to return. About six days all up. With a lot of luck, yes, he could hold. After all, he was in command of the Royal Guards, the best soldiers on the continent—
The air was suddenly filled with the sound of several thousand bowstrings being loosed at the same time. He jerked his head to the right and saw a dark cloud lifting from the enemy regiments, reach high into the blue sky, stay suspended there for an instant, and then plunge back to earth, straight towards him and his guards. He, like all the others on the wall, watched hypnotised, but something in Arad shook loose and he shouted: 'Down!', and brought his shield up over his head as he squatted against the parapets. He could not help squeezing shut his eyes. Arrows clattered against his shield, on the stonework. He peeped out from underneath his shield. He saw two guards down, one dead with an arrow in the neck, the other wriggling on the parapet with an arrow in his stomach.
'Hold that man!' he cried, but too late. The guard was squirming so violently he tipped over the edge. His scream was cut off by the ground below.
Cursing, Arad risked standing up and looking over the parapet, just in time to see another volley loosed. 'Down!' he cried again, and this time all on the wall hunkered down beneath their shields.
He wondered how long this would go on for. The Chetts would have to run out of arrows eventually, but the effect on the morale of his guards would be dreadful.
'They are all hiding like turtles,' Gudon said happily to Lynan, pointing to the wall.
'Good,' Lynan said. He put a hand on Ager's crooked back and Gudon's good one. 'Now, my friends.'
The two men grinned. They dismounted, an action copied by every Red Hand and every warrior in the Ocean Clan, waited for the third volley and then rushed forward twenty paces. They stopped, and when the fourth volley was loosed covered another twenty paces. In this way, the sound of their approach covered by the storm of arrows, they made it to the base of the wall undetected. Another volley and their ladders went up.
That was the signal for the archers to lower their bows, and for the assault proper to begin.
'It's stopped!' one of the guards called out, the relief clear in his voice.
Arad was not so sure. He waited a while longer before risking standing up again. He looked over the parapet and found himself face to face with a Chett. He screamed involuntarily and whacked down on the face with his spear shaft. The Chett countered it with a short sword and then was over and on the walkway. Arad had time to retreat a step and lower his spear before another Chett appeared. He lunged at the first, impaling him, then desperately tugged at his sword. The second Chett was now over the wall and advancing, but another guard had seen the danger and thrown a javelin. The Chett gasped and fell forward, the javelin wobbling in his spine.
'Up!' Arad yelled. 'Up! The enemy is on the wall! The enemy is on the wall!'
The guards still hiding under their shields stood as one just as a tide of Chetts washed over the parapets. Arad flung himself at the closest, knowing something desperate would have to be done or the guards would not be able to hold the wall for the next hour let alone six days. He slashed down with his sword, slicing through a Chett shoulder, tugged the blade free, cut to his right and felt his whole arm jar as the sword missed its soft target and bit into stone. A short sword scraped off his breastplate. He lashed out with his shield, felt it connect with something more yielding than the wall, then jabbed underneath the rim with the sword point. There was a squeal, and a dark figure disappeared off the edge.
Arad knew he was just reacting, and forced himself to think calmly even as part of his brain took over the function of defending himself. He quickly scanned the walkway. The Chetts outnumbered the guards, but the guards were better protected and better armed, and he told himself it was alright after all—his side could deal with this assault. Then he noticed that the greatest concentration of Chetts was near the wall's only gate, the same gate he remembered Sendarus and the Kingdom's first army marching through last spring on its way to save Hume from Haxus. If the enemy got control of that and let in the main force of Chetts, nothing would save Kendra. He descended to the ground by the nearest stairway and ran as fast as he could in his armour to the three companies kept in reserve. They were watching the battle on the wall, desperate to join in, but knowing that if they moved now and were needed somewhere else later on they could lose the city. The company captains received the constable's arrival with huge sighs of relief.
Arad ordered two companies to go directly to the gate and hold it at all costs. The other he led up the walkway he had come down and threw them against the enemy. The fighting was fierce, and the guards used every weapon at their disposaclass="underline" spears, swords, the edges of their shield, their mailed fists and their booted feet. The Chetts resisted fiercely, but the Royal Guards were better protected and took greater risks than their foe. Step by step the Chetts were being sandwiched between Arad's force and the two companies that had now reinforced the gate.
We're going to do it, Arad told himself. We're going to hold the wall.
Ager realised the Chetts were going to be thrown off the wall soon. Unless the gate was opened and reinforcements let through, they would have to start all over again, and this time at a much greater cost. He managed to fight his way to the gate, arriving at the same time as a company of Royal Guards. The tide was definitely turning against the Chetts now, and Ager looked around desperately for some way to regain the initiative. He noticed the guards on the walkway above the gate were being led by a short, wide-shouldered man who never lost a fight. He caught a glimpse of the man's face.