The majority of the rythni vanished from the battlements, for violence was imminent, and the emanations from that would be far harsher than the kind they had already endured. Hiephora, Cyfee, and the queens remained, along with a few of the very brave, whispering guidance to the climbers, letting them know the exact position and number of the guards. The fastest scaler was over half way up when one of Puriel's men noticed a rope. He shouted and drew his sword to hack at the noose.
Cyfee cringed as the blade struck stone, casting sparks, biting into the thick, resin-hardened fiber. Hiephora called for her flyers to warn the climbers. By the time the guard's chops severed the line completely, the men had shifted to other ropes. They continued to ascend.
Someone reached the alarm bell. Lantern glow beamed out of the barracks and from the windows of the keep. The fortress awakened.
The guards on the battlements, badly outnumbered, seeing death rising up at them, cut at the ropes with frantic haste. Two climbers did not shift quickly enough and fell, breaking legs on the jagged rock of the moat. A third landed on one of the sharpened stakes. Then the leaders vaulted the top and drew their swords. The courtyard rang with the sound of steel meeting steel. The first dribbles of reinforcements issued out of the buildings.
Hiephora darted toward the barbican, leaving Cyfee to assist with the high battle. Those rythni who could tolerate the psychic onslaught of men dying continued to replace ropes. As she glided, she saw the main mass of the rebel army bolt from the forest onto the roadway.
So many of them! The houses and farms of the region around Old Stump must have completely emptied, the residents rising to the cause of the Elandri prince and princess. Hiephora herself would have doubted it possible to gather so many, had she not foretold it.
She wished that she could determine the outcome of the battle, but the leaves of meditation, as with all oracles, had sung a twisted tale. She knew only what would happen if Gloroc were not stopped. He would rule for five thousand years. The land would be raped, the forests cut down within a few human generations. The rythni as a race would fade into history. Alemar and Elenya might be the only hope. That was why she had tipped over Lerina's cup of amethery twenty-five years earlier, and why she had committed her people this night.
But at the moment, the screams of men and swords tore at her determination, making her want to fly far away.
She propelled herself into the barbican just as the guard released the lever that would lower the portcullis and seal it off from the rest of the castle. His brow furrowed when the iron failed to drop. He strode to the portal, gazing up in perplexity, and cursed. The top of the portcullis had been bound into its bracket by hundreds of tiny, rythni-sized cords. He cast a worried look at the fighting on the battlements, then rolled a barrel under the archway, seized a pike, climbed onto the barrel, and began slashing at the cords with the pike tip.
Hiephora whistled, and dozens of her women appeared from their hiding places. They swarmed around the spindle at the center of the chamber. Their combined weight and the rapid beating of their wings were enough to spin the gears. The drawbridge began to lower, just as the first of the main throng of invaders reached the far side of the moat.
The guard shouted and leaped off the barrel. The rythni melted away to the far corners of the room. The man reversed the spindle's action. Meanwhile, some of Hiephora's minions tipped over the barrel and sent it rolling out the archway.
The last of the sentries on the battlements screamed as they were run through or flung from the heights. Dozens of the invaders were already rushing down the stairs. Not enough soldiers had emerged from the barracks yet to foil them from charging the barbican. The guard hissed and ran for the barrel, replaced it, and hacked at the cords again.
The rythni streaked to the spindle and began lowering the drawbridge.
The guard screamed and flung the pike. The rythni darted away, quick as wasps, avoiding injury. The guard abandoned the portcullis and returned to the spindle-permanently, since he knew that allowing the drawbridge to lower would mean at least ten times as many people to fight.
Hiephora ordered her women into hiding, ready to harass further if necessary. To her dismay, another guard arrived, then a third. The first yelled an explanation and the newcomers attacked the portcullis bindings. The rythni held back, unable to attack the men directly.
The portcullis creaked and began to wobble. Just then four rebels burst into the passageway. The lead man caught a pike in the shoulder. The other three mowed down the pair of guards and surrounded the man at the spindle. The scent of blood sent the rythni streaming out of the chamber. Hiephora, blessing mother forest that her people's role was ending, swiftly followed, closing her ears and refusing to look back. Three more invaders arrived at the barbican as she sped away.
Elenya leaped onto the drawbridge even before it was down, at the head of the first wave of invaders. They raced through the archway and into the great courtyard. A throng of guards poured out of the barracks to meet them.
The two sides clashed and blended. Elenya stood out in her white leather armor and greaves, her gauntlet a beacon to the opposition. She wanted it that way. Her preternatural speed made her the invaders' most effective weapon. It was imperative that she and the lead phalanx-all trained fighters in proper gear-break through to the interior of the barracks before their enemies could outfit themselves. Then the great mass of poorly equipped villagers in the rear ranks would have a reasonable chance.
A thick-shouldered mercenary with long, dark hair bore down on her. She twisted around him, found a gap in his unlaced chest armor, and sank the point of her rapier through his arm pit into his heart. Before he could fall she stabbed the man behind him. As allies closed in on either side, she used their protection to dance to a new area.
To her left an enemy soldier cut down a villager. He used his sword well, and kept his shield up. Two other dying invaders already lay at his feet. She bolted forward before more victims fell. He lasted through three exchanges, more than she liked, before she pinked him on the arm, and, with the opening created, drove a follow-up thrust into his chest.
They had already pushed the defenders half the distance to the barracks. She dared a glance at the battlements. They were secure, though an archer was causing grief from one of the keep windows. She dived back into the fray, praying that there were few guards of the mettle she had just encountered.
Beside her a companion took a battle ax in the side of his head, spraying her with blood. She killed the wielder, even as she blocked a thrust from another opponent with the ward around her gauntlet. Iregg came to her rescue, though she was not in great difficulty, and together they surged forward another few steps. They stepped over a body-another fallen ally. Too many dead, Elenya cursed to herself. So far Puriel's men had taken the worst of it, but the men of the garrison were professionals. They would recover if given enough time.
"Elandri tu!" she cried, dodging a pike. The hilt of her weapon burned like a hot coal, sliding in her grip as if greased. She feinted, thrust, twisted, blocked, letting her sword lead and adapting her body as needed. In one of those brief, clear moments that sometimes occur in the midst of battle, she saw a young soldier, third in line to confront her, freeze at the sight of her skill, as she dealt with the intervening foes. He was unable to raise his shield or blade; she harvested him like wheat.
Only then did she realize she stood at the threshold of one of the entrances to the barracks. A sudden rush of guards propelled her backwards, but she grinned. The tide was shifting. The barracks would be theirs, and after it, the keep.