“Many of my men will not like this.”
“But you know it is for the best,” Ituralde said. “Don’t you?”
Deepe hesitated. “Yes. You are correct, as you so often are. I will get them out.” He spoke in a lower voice. “This is a hopeless resistance, my Lord. Whatever is happening out there, it will be deadly. It galls me to suggest it…but what you have said about my Asha’man applies to your soldiers as well. Let us flee.” He said the word “flee” with bitterness.
“The Saldaeans wouldn’t leave with us.”
“I know.”
Ituralde considered it. Finally, he shook his head. “Every day we delay up here keeps these monsters away from my homeland a day longer. No, I cannot go, Deepe. This is still the best place to fight. You’ve seen how fortified those buildings are; we can hold inside for a few days, split apart, keep the army busy.”
“Then my Asha’man could stay and help.”
“You have your orders, son. You follow them. Understand?”
Deepe snapped his jaw shut, then nodded curtly. “I will take—”
Ituralde didn’t hear the rest. An explosion hit.
He didn’t feel it arrive. He was standing with Deepe one moment, then found himself on the floor of the wall walk, the world strangely silent around him. His head screamed with pain and he coughed, raising a trembling hand to find his face bleeding. There was something in his right eye; it seared with pain when he blinked. Why was everything so quiet?
He rolled over, coughing again, right eye squeezed shut, the other watering. The wall ended a few inches away from him.
He gasped. An enormous chunk of the northern wall was simply gone. He groaned, looking back in the other direction. Deepe had been standing beside him…
He found the Asha’man lying on the wall walk nearby, head bleeding. His right leg ended in a ragged rip of flesh and broken bone above where the knee should have been. Ituralde cursed and stumbled forward, dropping to his knees beside the man. Blood was pooling beneath Deepe, but he was still twitching. Alive.
I need to sound the alarm…
Alarm? That explosion would have been alarm enough. Inside the wall, buildings were demolished, crushed by stones flying in a spray away from the hole. Outside, Trollocs were loping forward, carrying rafts to cross the moat.
Ituralde pulled the Asha’man’s belt off and used it to bind his thigh. It was all he could think to do. His head was still throbbing from the explosion.
The city is lost…Light! It’s lost, just like that.
Hands were helping him up. Dazedly he glanced about. Connel; he’d survived the blast, though his coat was torn to shreds. He pulled Ituralde away while a pair of soldiers took Deepe.
The next minutes were a blur. Ituralde stumbled down the stairs from the wall, nearly pitching head first fifteen feet onto the cobbles. Only Connel’s hands kept him from falling. And then…a tent? A large open-sided tent? Ituralde blinked. A battlefield should not be so quiet.
Waves of heat washed over him. He screamed. Sounds assaulted his ears and mind. Screams, rock breaking, trumpets sounding, drums throbbing. Men dying. It all hit him at once, as if plugs had been yanked from his ears.
He shook himself, gasping. He was in the sick tent. Antail—the quiet, thin-haired Asha’man—stood above him. Light, but Ituralde felt exhausted! Too little sleep mixed with the strain of being Healed. As the sounds of battle consumed him, he found his eyelids treacherously heavy.
“Lord Ituralde,” Antail said, “I have a weave that will not make you well, but it will make you think you are well. It could be harmful to you. Do you want me to proceed?”
“I…” Ituralde said. The word came out as a mumble. “It…”
“Blood and bloody ashes,” Antail muttered. He reached forward. Another wave of Power washed through Ituralde. It was like a broom sweeping through him, pushing away all of the fatigue and confusion, restoring his senses and making him feel as if he’d had a perfect night’s rest. His right eye didn’t hurt anymore.
There was something lingering, deep down, an exhaustion in his bones. He could ignore that. He sat up, breathed in and out, then looked to Antail. “Now that is a useful weave, son. You should have told me you could do this!”
“It’s dangerous,” Antail repeated. “More dangerous than the women’s version, I’m told. In some ways more effective. You’re trading alertness now for a more profound exhaustion later on.”
“Later on, we won’t be in the middle of a city that is falling to the Trollocs. Light willing, at least. Deepe?”
“I saw to him first,” Antail said, gesturing to the Asha’man lying on a nearby cot, his clothing singed and his face bloodied. His right leg ended in a healed stump, and he appeared to be breathing, though unconscious.
“Connel!” Ituralde said.
“My Lord,” the soldier said, stepping up. He’d found a squad of soldiers to act as a personal guard.
“Let’s investigate this mess,” Ituralde said. He ran out of the sick tent, toward Cordamora Palace. The city was in chaos, groups of Saldaeans and Domani rushing this way and that. Connel, showing foresight, sent a messenger to find Yoeli.
The palace stood nearby, just before the front gate. Its wall had been damaged in the blast, but the building still looked hale. Ituralde had been using it as a command post. Men would expect to find him here. They ran inside, Connel carrying Ituralde’s sword—the belt had been cut free at some point. They climbed to the third floor, then ran out onto a balcony that surveyed the area broken by the blast.
As he’d originally feared, the city was lost. The swath of broken wall was being defended by a hastily assembled jumble of defenders. A mounting tide of Trollocs were throwing down rafts on the moat, some beginning to surge forward, followed by Fades. Men ran through the streets, disoriented.
If he’d had more time to prepare, he could have held, as he’d told Deepe. Not now. Light, but this defense has been one disaster after another.
“Gather the Asha’man,” Ituralde ordered. “And any of my officers you can find. We will organize the men into a retreat through gateways.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Connel said.
“Ituralde, no!” Yoeli burst out onto the balcony, uniform dirtied and ripped.
“You survived,” Ituralde said, relieved. “Excellent. Man, your city is lost. I’m sorry. Bring your men with us and we can—”
“Look!” Yoeli said, pulling Ituralde to the side of the balcony, pointing to the east. A thick column of smoke rose in the distance. A village the Trollocs had burned?
“The watchfire,” Yoeli continued. “My sister has seen aid coming! We must stand until they arrive.”
Ituralde hesitated. “Yoeli,” he said softly, “if a force has come, it can’t be large enough to stop this horde of Trollocs. And that’s assuming it’s not a ruse. The Shadowspawn have proven clever in the past.”
“Give us a few hours,” Yoeli said. “Hold the city with me and send scouts through those gateways of yours to see if a force really is coming.”
“A few hours?” Ituralde said. “With a hole in your wall? We’re overwhelmed, Yoeli.”
“Please,” Yoeli pled. “Are you not one of those they name Great Captain? Show me what that title means, Lord Rodel Ituralde.”
Ituralde turned, back at the broken wall. Behind him, in the palace’s top room, he could hear his officers gathering. The line at the wall was fragmenting. It wouldn’t be long now.
Show me what that means.
Perhaps…
“Tymoth, are you here?” Ituralde bellowed.
A red-haired man in a black coat stepped onto the balcony. He’d be in command of the Asha’man now that Deepe had fallen. “Here, Lord Ituralde.”
“Gather your men,” Ituralde said urgently. “Take command of that gap and have the soldiers there retreat. I want the Asha’man to hold the breach. I need a half-hour. I want all of your energy—everything you’ve got—to hit those Trollocs. You hear me? Everything you’ve got. If you can channel enough to light a candle when this is done, I’ll have your hides.”
“Sir,” the Asha’man said. “Our retreat?”
“Leave Antail in the Healing tent,” Ituralde said. “He can make a large enough gateway for the Asha’man to run. But everyone else, hold that breach!”
Tymoth dashed away. “Yoeli,” Ituralde said, “your job is to gather your forces and stop them from running through the city like…” He paused. He’d been about to say, “like it’s Tarmon bloody Gai’don.” Burn me! “…like there is nobody in command. If we are going to hold, we will need to be organized and disciplined. I need four cavalry companies formed up in the courtyard in ten minutes. Give the orders.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Yoeli said, snapping to it.
“Oh,” Ituralde said, turning. “I’m going to need a couple of cartloads of firewood, as many barrels of oil as you can come up with, and all of the wounded in either army who can still run but who have face or arm wounds. Also, get me anyone in the city who’s ever held a bow. Go!”
Nearly an hour later, Ituralde stood, hands clasped behind his back, waiting. He’d moved in from the balcony to look out a window, as to not expose himself. But he still had a good view of the fighting.
Outside the palace, the Asha’man line was finally weakening. They’d given him the better part of an hour, blasting back wave after wave of Trollocs in an awesome display of Power. Blessedly, the enemy channelers had not appeared. After that show of power, hopefully they were drained and exhausted.
It felt like dusk, with those oppressive clouds overhead and the masses of figures darkening the hillsides beyond the city. The Trollocs, fortunately, didn’t bring ladders or siege towers. Only wave after wave at that breach, whipped into attack by the Myrddraal.
Already, some of the black-coated men were limping away from the breach, looking exhausted. The last few threw a final blast of Fire and erupting Earth, then followed their companions. They left the gap completely open and undefended, as ordered.
Come on, Ituralde thought as the smoke cleared.
The Trollocs peered through the smoke, climbing over the carcasses of those the Asha’man had killed. The Shadowspawn loped on hooves or thick paws. Some sniffed the air.
The streets inside the gap were filled with carefully placed men who were bloodied and wounded. They began to scream as the Trollocs entered, running as commanded. Likely none of their fear was feigned. The scene looked more terrible now that many of the nearby buildings were smoldering, as if from the blast, roofs on fire, smoke pouring from windows. The Trollocs wouldn’t know that the slate roofs had been designed not to burn, and laws kept buildings from containing too much wood.
Ituralde held his breath. The Trollocs broke, running into the city, howling and roaring, groups breaking apart as they saw the opportunity to pillage and slaughter.