In the next instant, Mag’r’s voice came booming over the causeway. “Let the gates open!” he ordered. “Charge, Beast Eaters!”
A great roar rose from the Joorsh ranks, then the ground began to tremble beneath Agis’s feet as Mag’r’s warriors rushed across the isthmus. Boulder after boulder crashed into the walls of Castle Feral, filling the gateyard with a clamorous din such as the noble had never before heard. The Saram on the front wall responded with halfhearted battle howls of their own and hurled boulders down at the causeway.
Agis glanced upward, expecting to see the faces of the Poison Pack peering down from the lofty walls overhead. Instead, he saw nothing but yellow Athasian sky. Taking no chances that the ambush would fail, Nal had apparently withdrawn his troops from sight.
“What are you waiting for?” demanded Brita, using her sword to wave Agis ahead. “Open the gates!”
The noble rushed forward and placed one hand on each gate. Pumping his legs furiously, he slowly managed to get the heavy panels moving outward. When the gap between them grew too great for his arms to span, he concentrated all of his efforts on the one that had not been pierced by the harpoon. For a moment, it seemed to stick. Then it broke free and swung outward of its own volition. Giving it one last shove, the noble wrapped his arms around a bone slat and jumped on. His intention was not to hide, but merely to get out of harm’s way as soon as possible.
As Agis swung outward with the gate, he saw that the Joorsh warriors with the battering ram had cast their weapon aside. They were wading back to the shore to climb out of the silt. At the same time, Mag’r’s Beast Eaters were charging across the causeway, shaking their spiked clubs in the air and screaming threats against their Saram brethren.
Overhead, boulders flew in both directions as the Joorsh charged, and so much rubble rained down around Agis that he felt as though he had gotten caught in a landslide. As the Beast Eaters reached the end of the causeway and stepped onto the small deck before the gate, the Joorsh stone-hurlers turned their aim elsewhere. The lull lasted only a moment, for the Saram quickly began to drop boulders down on the heads of the Beast Eaters. The invaders responded by raising their kank-shell bucklers to deflect the deadly rain.
Their efforts met with little success. Aided by the incredible height of the walls over the gate, the boulders came crashing down with a force unmatched by the long-distance hurling that had taken place so far. The Saram stones smashed through the bucklers as though they were glass, spraying shards of kank shell in every direction, snapping Joorsh arms, and shattering Joorsh skulls with resounding cracks. Within moments of stepping off the causeway, a quarter of the Beast Eater company lay sprawled before the gate, either moaning and writhing in agony, or silent and still, like the rocks that had killed them.
The survivors rushed into the courtyard. A few muffled clatters sounded from inside, but it was nothing like the incredible din Agis expected to hear when the Poison Pack made their attack. The yard remained relatively quiet for a moment, until a triumphant Beast Eater cheer blasted out of the gate.
At the other end of the isthmus, Mag’r answered with a deep-throated war cry and signaled the second wave to charge. This time, he led the charge himself, waving a huge obsidian sword over his head and lumbering forward in great, swaying strides. Behind him came the giants who had been holding the battering ram, armed with a motley assortment of clubs and lances. Clearly, any of them could have outrun their king, for they were forced to trot at half speed behind his waddling form. Nevertheless, none of them attempted to pass, though Agis did not know whether their reluctance was out of respect for their leader, or merely because Mag’r’s immense bulk so completely filled the causeway that they would have had to jump into the dust harbor to get past.
Again, Saram boulders began to drop outside the castle, but the rain was not nearly as thick as before. The small contingent of beasthead warriors were splitting their attacks between the courtyard and the isthmus, with the result that they did not have much effect in either place.
Mag’r, charging through the sparse hail with a jubilant grin on his fleshy lips, hardly seemed to notice the stones that did fall near him. Knowing what would happen once the giant passed through the gateway, Agis could hardly bear to watch as the sachem waddled to his death.
As Mag’r reached the opening, he fixed his gray eyes on Agis’s form, which was still clinging to the gate. “Good!” He stretched a chubby arm down to pluck Agis off the gate. “Come, you’ll fight at my side!”
The noble’s heart jumped into his throat. He released his hold and dropped off the gate, allowing the sachem’s pudgy fingers to close on thin air. Mag’r frowned and looked as though he would stop to pluck the noble off the ground, but was carried into the courtyard by the momentum of the second wave’s charge.
Agis threw himself beneath the gate, then watched from his shelter as the rest of the company rushed into the courtyard. By the time the last giant had passed through the gates, the apron had become, quite literally, a mountain of dead flesh and stony rubble. Only a small space directly in front of the gates remained relatively clear, for it appeared that the Saram had deliberately avoided dropping any boulders in this area. Agis found this puzzling, since the Saram ambush would work better if their enemy’s only escape was blocked by bodies and stones.
Mag’r’s deep voice began issuing orders inside the courtyard, and Agis crawled from his hiding place. To both sides of the isthmus, he saw Joorsh warriors wading toward the castle entrance from the Bay of Woe. At the same time, the clatter of boulders dropping into the courtyard increased in frequency, fixing the attention of Mag’r and his warriors on the walls above their heads.
Agis saw Brita’s camouflaged form slip out of the courtyard. She grabbed the gate with the harpoon in it and began to quietly pull it closed. Nal’s plan, the noble realized, was even more ingenious than it had appeared. Once Brita closed the gates, the true slaughter would begin-leaving him locked outside the castle, while Tithian remained inside with the Dark Lens.
Agis rushed over to the body of the nearest Joorsh and pulled the warrior’s bone dagger from its sheath. The weapon was taller than the noble, and he had to hold it like a two-handed sword, but he suspected he could wield the blade well enough for his purposes.
By the time Agis turned back around, Brita was reaching for the second gate. Hefting the borrowed blade over his head, the noble rushed forward. The chameleon-head turned one eye on him and one on Mag’r, her club-ended tongue flickering in anger. Paying her gesture no heed, Agis swung his blade with all his might. The beasthead deftly pulled her leg out of the way, narrowly avoiding a gash across her knee, and kicked.
The giant’s toe caught Agis square in the stomach, wracking his body with pain and causing him to drop his weapon. The noble went tumbling across the rocky apron, not stopping until he hit a pile of Joorsh corpses.
Agis was still trying to shake the dizziness from his head when he saw that his brief skirmish with Brita had been noticed. Ignoring the steady clatter of boulders in the courtyard, Sachem Mag’r stepped up behind the Saram spy and sent her reptilian head flying with one hack of his obsidian blade. Agis barely had time to roll out of the way before her body crashed down on the same pile of corpses into which he had tumbled.
Mag’r scowled and pointed his sword at Brita’s body. “What was she doing here?” he demanded.
As the sachem spoke, the first Joorsh reinforcements began to arrive from the Bay of Woe.
“She was hiding, I guess,” Agis replied.
The noble cast a nervous glance around the apron. To all sides, Joorsh were slowly hauling themselves onto the barren rock, silt pouring off their bodies in long gray streamers.