Since the death of Duke Rihards, Count Onikil had secured his rule over Rolga. He had quickly gathered his army and marched them to Andola, and now he could see Baron Ravel’s castle in the centre of the city, soon to be under siege. The sight thrilled the count. He and his men could be the first at the castle gates, the first to start taking it down brick by brick, but he had orders from Rodrik Varl not to proceed too far too soon, and so Count Onikil cultivated his patience, methodically securing Andola’s western districts and waiting for those with more difficult tasks to catch up with him.
Surrounded by horsemen in their black Rolgan armour, Count Onikil felt strangely indestructible as he trotted through the streets. He loved the smell of fire and the cries of women, and knew that from the windows of bolted homes children looked at him with fear. A tall man, Count Onikil sat arrow-straight in his saddle, feeling like a hero in his embroidered cape of gold and scarlet. A time of Norvan greatness was upon the world. At long last, his country had risen from its own ashes.
Oddly, it had taken a woman to make it so.
As arrows flew past his head, Rodrik Varl rode along the edge of the green, shouting orders to his men while the battering ram was brought up from the rear. In three hours of fighting his men had hardly breached the bastion at all. The ladder-men had tried and failed repeatedly to overtake the walls, beaten back consistently by the archers deployed along the catwalks and in the tower. By now Varl had called up his siege machines, a pair of catapults dragged all the way from Carlion. Before they had fallen into Jazana Carr’s hands they had been well used in King Lorn’s army and had taken hours to get into position. They were clumsy but monumental beasts, and the mere sight of them had drained the colour from the Liirian faces on the wall. Mostly, though, the catapults had been ineffectual. Though they had drilled with the weapons for days before the siege, his men were mostly unused to the machines. Each shot they launched landed harmlessly outside the bastion’s walls, more a danger to his own troops than to the Liirians. The catapults took far too long to load, too, and by now Rodrik Varl had given up on them. The ram, he knew, was their only real chance.
But his men had taken heavy causalities bringing the ram into position, and Rodrik Varl cursed Jazana Carr as he galloped along the battlefield. Though he loved her, he sometimes hated her stupidity. Her greed had cost him dearly at the bastion, and he wondered if Kaj was faring any better at the eastern wall. He held his shield high, guarding his head from the storm of arrows, which had concentrated on him lately, and sneered at his archers to return fire. They would need protection to bring up the ram. Nearby, on the outskirts of the field, the huge battering ram stood ready to roll. Muscular men lined its side, holding desperately to its iron grips as they awaited the order to heave. Behind them, the huge catapults were loaded. Varl could hear the strains of their many twisted splines tautly singing as the arms were pulled into position and the cups loaded with shot. It took ten men to load each weapon, piling jagged boulders into them from war carts brought onto the green. A train of carts snaked into the distance where the reservists and workmen waited. The field itself was bedlam and Rodrik Varl could barely hear his own voice in his head. He was exhausted, and the rank smell of oil and smoke choked his searing lungs. The field lay littered with fallen mercenaries, each pierced cleanly by a pointed shaft.
‘Ready on the ram!’ he called. His voice strained against the din. To his men at the catapults he cried, ‘Make ready to fire!’ Quickly he galloped toward a line of archers, protected now by hastily erected siege walls. ‘Covering fire,’ he ordered them, and the lieutenants passed the order down. The archers in the field dipped into their quivers and loaded their bows one more time. Seeing what was happening, the Liirians in the bastion replied with a hailstorm of shafts. A thump-thump of arrows hit the shields. Rodrik Varl raised his hand in defiance, saw the fire burning on the tower, and gave the order.
A volley of arrows streaked into the blue. The great catapults launched their deadly loads. A hundred men grunted against the enormous ram; the weapon let out a groaning wail. Slowly, slowly, the behemoth began to move. From behind the shields the archers drew back and fired again. The exchange of missiles darkened the sun. One, two, three men fell dead from the ram. Others hurried forward to take their place, leaving the fallen on the trampled field. Their commanders cursed at them, driving them on, while horsemen with long shields did their best to protect them.
‘Go, go!’ Varl urged. An arrow struck his shield, breaking through the wood, its iron head peeking through. The shot drove him on, deeper into the field and chaos, closer to the ram that was picking up speed, headlong like a charging bull toward the bastion’s gates. A nearby horseman rolled from his saddle, spraying Varl with gore as a bolt blew his head apart. Varl shook off the surprise, galloping in a wide circle across the field and hissing at his men to hurry.
Around the ram the world seemed to stop. Even safe in the bastion’s tower, the Liirians there paused a moment while the menacing weapon picked up speed. The fire slackened, the field grew hushed, and the sound of ten oiled wheels filled the air as the battering ram bore down.
Colonel Bern felt the world shake. The Norvan ram bashed the bastion gate with an earsplitting clap, cracking the timbers and sending men spilling from the wall. The two stout portals buckled, barely held closed by the splintered timbers. From his place in the yard, Bern could see the head of the great weapon through the breached gate and the triumphant, sweaty faces of his enemy.
The time was drawing quickly near. He had already mounted his horse, prepared to take the field. Nevins, his cavalry commander, rallied his horsemen for the coming melee. Once the ram was deployed again, the gate would breach and the bastion would be lost. It would be a slaughter for the men inside, who had all signed on to fight to the death but who deserved better than to perish for the sake of Baron Ravel.
It would not be that way, Bern determined.
At last, he had the excuse he needed. His men had defended the bastion mightily; they could all be proud. He gave a look to Nevins who nodded his beaten helm in understanding.
To the sergeant of the yard Bern gave his order, who called to his piper to sound the trumpet. The piper put his brass instrument to his lips and blew a mournful note.
Up on the roof, Captain Aliston heard the trumpet blast and knew the time had come. One by one his archers lowered their bows. Each took up a special arrow next, one unlike any other they had fired all day. They notched the arrows to their bows and hurriedly went to the brazier. The inferno that had so far covered their plan still belched smoke into the sky, passing along a tiny portion of itself to the oil-soaked arrows. As his men prepared their weapons, Aliston saw the ram being repositioned below. His forty archers took up their positions again along the rooftop’s crenellations. This time, blazing arrows tilted skyward, they took careful aim at the green beyond the field.
Confident the arrows couldn’t reach them on the green, the Norvans had arranged themselves in dense, clumsy clusters, waiting for an order to join the battle. Aliston smiled, happily anticipating the coming blaze.
‘Fire,’ said Captain Aliston, and watched in wicked glee while the flaming arrows took flight.
Rodrik prepared himself for combat as the battering ram broke through the gate. Only peripherally did he see the glowing fireflies sailing high above. He looked skyward, following the burning arrows as they arced toward the field, and wondered dreadfully with what Colonel Bern had gifted him.