Sergeant Arad, he recognised with a shock. A good man. A very good soldier.
Ager managed to retreat from the battle in front of the gate itself and climb back up the walkway. He used all his skill with a short sword to force his way over the gate to the other side. Guards kept on trying to slice and skewer and slash him, but he dealt with each attack coolly, dispassionately, not looking at their faces because he knew some of them had been his friends. There was a sudden break in the fighting, and Ager found himself directly facing Arad himself.
'Sergeant!' he called out.
Arad looked at the crookback with surprise, and then with something like disdain. 'Not Sergeant, Ager Parmer, but Constable!'
'Better you than Dejanus, who I'll bet won the office for murdering Berayma!'
'Don't twist history to justify your betrayal of Grenda Lear!' Arad shouted back. He raised his long sword and advanced on Ager.
Ager waited until Arad was close enough to take a swipe at him and leaped forward, putting himself well inside Arad's reach. He lunged with his short sword, but found it blocked with the guard's shield.
'I remember your tricks with the short sword,' Arad said, and drove down with the pommel of his own weapon. Ager dodged aside, but caught the blow on his right shoulder. He roared in pain. Arad quickly drew his sword arm back to stab Ager, but the crookback leaped forward again and at the same time threw his short sword from his right hand to his left and thrust at the guard's midriff. Arad retreated a step, slashed down with the shield. Ager sidestepped, slipped and fell onto his knees; Arad's sword whistled above his head. He slashed at the guard's legs, his blade biting deep into the right calf muscle.
Arad shouted, fell back again, but his right leg gave way and he fell forward. Ager lifted his short sword and drove it up with all his strength. It sank to the hilt into Arad's stomach. The guard gasped, toppled sideways. Ager pulled out his sword and placed it against Arad's throat. 'I'm sorry, Sergeant,' he said, and pulled the blade across. Blood sprayed across Ager's face as Arad's breath hissed out of the wound.
'The constable is dead!' Ager shouted. 'The constable is dead!'
The Royal Guards did not know who had shouted the words, but the effect was immediate. Each guard felt his heart grow heavy and his courage diminish. None retreated, none turned their back to the enemy, but it was enough. Ager charged into them, his sword seeming to take a life with every thrust, and behind him his Chetts redoubled their efforts. The guards started to fall back.
Areava, Galen and Charion were halfway to the wall when they heard fighting break out. They ran the rest of the way, reaching the battle out of breath and with pools of sweat settling in their boots and gloves. All three quickly assessed the situation and realised how desperate it was. Areava drew her sword, shouted 'To me! To me! Kendrans to me!' and charged towards the knot of warriors struggling around the bar to the bronze gate. Galen and Charion drew their weapons, shouted their war cries, and flanked the queen as she drove into a knot of Chetts trying to get their hand on the bar to slip it out of its bracket. She hewed right and left, not waiting to finish off those she wounded and maimed but pushing on to free the gate of every enemy. She could hear the muffled sounds of swearing and screaming warriors all around her and above her on the walkway. The guards, realising the queen herself was now among them, regained their courage and morale and started fighting back as if they were suddenly possessed by demons. The Chetts could not hold out against them, and started losing ground.
Areava finally reached the bar. She had to stop to regain her breath and loosen her muscles, especially in her sword arm which felt as heavy as lead. Galen and Charion, still flanking her, had no such trouble and the queen looked at them in envy. A guard saw she had stopped and hurried to her, bowing deeply. 'Your Majesty, are you alright? You are not wounded?'
Areava surprised herself by laughing. 'No. Just tired. I'm not used to personally smiting my enemies.'
The guard flashed a smile in return. 'It is joyous work!' he cried, and left to rejoin it.
'That's the spirit,' she said, more to herself than anyone else. She shook her right arm one more time, slightly changed the grip on her sword and stood away from the gate so she could see up to the walkway. Heavy fighting was still going on up there, and it seemed to her that the Royal Guards were getting the worst of it. Then she saw Ager.
'Captain Parmer,' she said, and watched in admiration as the crookback moved almost magically to dismay his enemies.
'I remember him from Daavis,' Charion said.
'I remember him from long before then,' Galen added with distaste. 'Let us finish this here and now.'
Lynan and Korigan watched the progress of the Red Hands and the Ocean Clan on the walls. Their hearts rose and fell with the sway of battle, and Lynan found it almost impossible to bear.
'They must open the gate soon,' he said.
'They will,' Korigan said, her voice unreasonably calm.
'Look! More guards! That little one leading them is a demon!'
'He fights very well.' She considered asking for her best archers to shoot at him, but the distance was just a little too far, and the chance of hitting one of their own just a little too great.
Lynan heard tramping behind him and turned to see that a regiment of Chandran infantry had arrived, tired from their long descent from the ridge.
'Infantry?' he thought aloud. He wheeled his horse around and approached one of their officers. 'It's a hard climb down,' he said.
The officer nodded, not really sure what to say to this formidable looking man.
'Good training, however,' Lynan continued.
'Training, your Majesty?'
'For climbing up,' Lynan said. 'Tell your men to get ready.' He pointed to the wall. 'They're going up there. Leave your spears behind. Just swords.'
The officer saluted. 'Yes, your Majesty.'
A short while later the regiment was ready, dressed in a long line. As Lynan dismounted Korigan said, 'What do you think you're doing?'
'I'm going to lead an assault on the walls of Kendra.'
'You're wounded.'
'I'm king,' he replied. 'My place is up there with my warriors.'
'Your place is here, with your army. Ager and Gudon know what they are doing.'
'No doubt. So do I.'
'Then I'm coming with you,' she said and dismounted to be by his side.
He frowned in thought. 'Good idea, but I think you should bring your own warriors.'
'There are no other infantry here.'
'No, but there are several thousand archers. If we get them on top of the wall, imagine what they could do to the enemy on the other side. We might not need to open the gate then.'
Korigan did not even reply, but hurried off to order two banners of horse archers to dismount and line up behind the Chandran infantry. When Korigan was by his side again, Lynan started walking forward, and three thousand warriors followed him. Halfway to the wall he started to trot, ignoring the pain in his side, and by the time he reached one of the ladders he had enough momentum to leap past the first five rungs. He did not wait to see how close behind the others were, but quickly climbed to the wall, leaped over, drew his sword and ran along the walkway to the gate.
Gudon finally reached Ager, something he had been trying to do ever since he and his Red Hands had climbed the wall. The resistance from the guards had been fierce, and it seemed to Gudon that he was losing two warriors for every guard that went down, but when the cry went up that their constable had fallen the odds had shifted in favour of the Chetts. At last Gudon and the Red Hands broke through the last knot of resistance on the eastern part of the walkway; he ordered half of them down the nearest stairway to secure the gate itself and then led the other half to reinforce Ager. When he finally managed to find a place in the line next to his friend he said, 'You're a hard man to find.'