He clapped his hands and the hall dissolved into the noise of action. The drum of thousands of feet on the stone-flagged floor, the shouts and calls to organise and the clatter of timber as tables were shoved aside to create space by the main doors. Ilkar couldn’t keep a smile from his face and he turned to Hirad and The Unknown, both of whom were nodding their appreciation. The discipline of the Julatsans gave them a chance.
Denser landed again at the doors, his voice urgent. ‘Come on. They’re almost on the store, they’ll enter through the western entrance. We have to move now or they’ll overwhelm us.’ He held out his arms for Erienne and she ran into them. ‘HotRain, I think.’ She nodded and they took off.
The first of the rota letters were ready. Lallan, under the shadow of The Unknown Warrior, did not hesitate.
‘Go, go, go! Through the southern market, follow the corridor of soldiers. Take weapons where you find them. Run!’ His last was lost in the thunder of feet and the calls of encouragement that rang out and echoed in the grain store. The Wesmen’s Julatsan prisoners ran free, ran hard and ran straight.
Ilkar was joined to the left of the doors by The Unknown and Hirad, and the three Raven watched the Julatsans as they made their bid for brief freedom. Above them, and moving in a lazy arc while they watched the advancing Wesmen, were Denser and Erienne. Julatsa was alive with fighting, the clash of swords, the detonation of spells and the shouts and calls to action coming at them from all directions.
‘We had no right to expect this to go so well,’ said Ilkar.
‘I’m not so sure that it is,’ said The Unknown. ‘They’re moving too slowly. And look at Denser now.’
Ilkar could see what he meant. Despite the selective murder of the young and very old by the Wesmen, there were still a sizeable number still alive and the pace of the column of city people was slow, scared and stumbling, the elderly supported by and slowing the younger and quicker. Behind them, in the store, Lallan’s voice could be heard above the general hubbub, urging them on, exhorting them to greater effort and greater speed.
And now, moving determinedly west, Denser was tracking the Wesmen force as it neared the square.
Above the rooftops, Denser, his sight augmented, surveyed Julatsa and, more particularly, the immediate threat to The Raven. Along the secure corridor, the Julatsans were coming under increasing pressure from the waking, angry Wesmen. Pockets of fighting were continuing along its whole length as the occupying warriors directed themselves against the College defenders. Nowhere yet was the situation critical but east and west Denser could see Wesmen streaming in from their billets and camps, emerging from houses, offices and inns, belting on their weapons and hurrying to the fight, alarm bells sounding out across the city.
The weak points of the corridor were at either end and in the southern market where buildings gave way to cobbles and access to the defensive line was broader. Fortunately, the Wesmen hadn’t reached those points yet, halted by fierce flank defence in critical streets and the judicious use of fire as a barricade. The Julatsans were making their knowledge of the city streets work hard for them and, so far, neither grain store nor College was assailed.
But to the south and west of the grain store, the clearly organised fast march of well over three thousand Wesmen was nearing the square and would soon engulf The Raven and their charges. Too soon.
Below Denser, the freed Julatsans continued to stream out of the doors to the grain store, urged on by the gesturing arms of Hirad, The Unknown and Ilkar, the sound of their voices rising clear into the slowly lightening sky. Denser swooped down again, hovering over the moving line, apologising as some of those below him flinched or stumbled.
‘Hirad, any time now this square will be crawling with Wesmen bent on unpicking your entrails. They are barely a street away from the south and west entrances and we aren’t enough to stop them on open ground.’
Hirad shrugged and pointed at Erienne who rested in his arms, eyes closed, deep in concentration.
‘Delay them for us, then,’ he said. ‘We aren’t leaving until this hall is empty.’ He glanced back inside. ‘There are only a few hundred to go.’
‘Gods, you’re pushing it close,’ said Denser.
‘Too close if you don’t start laying down some fire,’ said Hirad. ‘So go and make yourself useful.’
Denser glowered and swept back into the sky, heading south-west.
‘Come on, hurry!’ Ilkar shouted, frustration edging his tone. There were only a couple of hundred left in the store and Hirad had to smile though he could hear the barking shouts of the approaching enemy.
‘Calm down, Ilks. We’ll be fine.’
‘Calm down? A Wesmen army is about to slaughter us as we stand at the back of a slow-moving line of infants and ancients and all you can do is stick the only man who can slow them up with little barbs from that great barbarian mouth of yours. Don’t tell me to calm down.’
‘Ilkar.’ The Unknown’s tone was admonishing. ‘Your talk will incite panic. More haste is good, blind flight is bad.’ The Unknown helped a frail-looking man on his way with a friendly pat. ‘That’s it, keep up the pace. Time is running out. That’s it.’ He leant into Ilkar again. ‘Don’t forget, we’re The Raven. While we remain calm, so will they.’
‘I just think we’re cutting this very fine, just like Denser says,’ said Ilkar.
‘And you are both right,’ said The Unknown quietly. ‘But like Hirad says, we aren’t leaving anyone behind.’
The store was all but empty. A man jogged past with a child on his shoulders and a babe in his arms, followed by two young women arm-chairing a tiny old lady who appeared in a dead faint.
‘How are we doing, Lallan?’ called Ilkar.
‘Fine. Almost there.’
Sudden illumination from behind them threw stark shards of shadow flashing across the stone-flagged square. Hirad swung round. Drops of fire fell like heavy rain from the sky, concentrating in a tight area to the south. Above the spell, the dark shape of Denser carrying Erienne flitted upwards, pursued by the black shafts of arrows. None hit, so far as Hirad could see, but the clatter of wood on stone as the arrows dropped to the earth, was lost in the tumult of noise as Erienne’s HotRain struck home.
Horns sounded behind the buildings, men shouted, some crying out in shock, pain or surprise. The rumbling of running feet could be clearly heard and, where the HotRain took a hold, flames licked at wood and caressed the night from the sky, augmenting the dawn.
As Hirad watched, Denser and Erienne wheeled and dived in again, fast. A long, narrow line of HotRain flared beneath them, dropping quickly. More wasted arrows flicked into the sky, tracking far too slowly to catch the speeding mage pair, who swung back towards the grain store.
Landing in a flurry of dust as the last of the Julatsans ran from the doors with Lallan’s urging voice behind them, Denser set Erienne down and shook some life back into his arms.
‘We’re slowing them but we aren’t stopping them, I—’
With a howl, the first of the Wesmen entered the square. Like a flash flood bursting into a valley they came, filling the space with the weight of their numbers and the very air with the deafening sound of their voices as they saw their quarry at last.
The released Julatsan prisoners panicked and ran, their screams tearing at the ear, any semblance of order in those at the rear of the line dissolving into terrified chaos, stumbling, tripping, pushing and forcing their way towards the northern exit of the square.
‘Move quickly but calmly. Help your friends, don’t shove them aside!’ Lallan’s voice rose above the barrage of noise but was completely ignored. The Unknown turned to him.
‘Get yourself out of here,’ he said. ‘Don’t look back. Hirad, time to act.’