They struck and struck again, aiming at the beaked creatures when they could—with arrows from the side, with spears, with fire and sword from those who could manage it, moving through the sea of flesh that the twistedmen made on the wall. More hot oil came up, and though the pots weren’t as full as they had been, men too wounded to hold a sword lugged them the more easily, and poured them over the places where the mesmerizing things were. Some got out of the way. Not all.
In time, the creatures faltered. There was a pause between the one that fell to Amris’s blade and the one that came after. In it, he gazed out across the battlefield and saw two of the squirming faces, as Darya had called them, step forward, robes shining in the sunset. They raised spatulate hands and, without a sound from them, the monsters on the walls began to pull back.
It was no situation for quarter. A rain of arrows and even rocks followed, as the wall’s defenders struck with anything they had, and more than one retreating twistedman found a blade in the top of its head as it started the journey down.
They did go, nonetheless. Amris didn’t lower his blade until those on the wall were too far out of range to surge back up. Then he shot, though without Darya’s expertise, until the retreating forces were out of arrow’s range.
Only then did he let his vision expand, taking in the walls and the troops on them: bloody, exhausted, but still standing.
“Third guard!” Hallis yelled. “All others, food, water, and rest!”
Amris repeated the order, then made for the stairs with legs he’d almost forgotten still worked for walking.
* * *
Bodies burned with a thick, choking smoke and a smell like bad pork beneath the sweet spiciness of incense. There was no time for individual rites, no space for individual pyres—just a pile of twenty soldiers, laid out as well as the priests and their assistants could manage. Isen wasn’t among them. Darya, who’d heard about his death—hopefully quick, probably not—thought of him as she watched the fire, and whispered a prayer, though she didn’t expect it’d do much good. The Dark Lady was doing what she could. They all were.
Amris’s hand was warm on the back of her shoulder, even through the armor. Neither of them spoke for a while, not until the flames had reduced the bodies to facelessness.
“How are we doing?” asked one of the people who stood near them. Darya recognized the girl who’d been helping Isen when they’d come to the fort. A bandage covered one of her eyes, and her lips were split. When she spoke, Darya saw the gap where a few of her front teeth had been.
“For where and when we are,” Amris replied slowly, “well. That’s not to say our losses don’t exist, or that we don’t feel them, but”—he spread his hands—“Thyran’s forces have come against us twice, in large part, perhaps three times. Each time we’ve beaten them back. We hold, and we keep holding.”
“Your mages and I are thinking of a way to guard against that trance,” said Dale, the Mourner. His gray-streaked blond hair stood out in untidy spikes, and his hands were bloody to the elbow. “Likely it’ll be unpleasant.”
“What isn’t?” Darya asked.
“Just so.”
Gerant’s emerald flickered, and she felt his presence in the back of her mind. He wasn’t entirely back yet, not enough to talk, but clearly the conversation had caught his attention. “If there’s time,” she said to Dale quietly, “I’d want in on that discussion. Or he would,” she added with a gesture to her sword.
“I’ll find you,” said the Mourner, unperturbed by the mention of Gerant as few outside the Sentinels and Letar’s service were. Amris was another exception, Darya thought, and leaned her head against his chest for a second in silent gratitude.
“It’s been two days,” said Aldrich, who’d met them at the gate. His eyes were redder than the smoke could explain: maybe for Isen, maybe for another friend—or friends—in the pyre or elsewhere, maybe only for the situation. “And another two since we heard. Criwath is sending men, yes?”
“The men will be their answer,” said Darya.
“But,” added Amris, “they will. Hallis is certain of them—and if the map holds true, they’ll be another day or two away, and with them will come mages and knights.”
“Mourners too, perhaps even a Blade,” said Dale, “and another two or three of your order, Sentinel, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Amris nodded respectfully, talking as if he had no idea that the grieving crowd had gathered around him, as if he were only conversing with friends. “We have only to stay standing, and with the walls more or less intact, until they arrive.”
“And you think we can,” said the former stable hand.
“We’d best,” Aldrich replied, “or it’ll all be for nothing.”
“We can,” said Amris in slow, measured tones. “And it won’t.”
The courtyard wasn’t silent. Soldiers some distance out talked. Those in the square with the healers groaned, and some screamed. People carried supplies to the wall, and beyond the wall, the twistedmen growled and slavered and taunted the defenders. Closer at hand, the fire kept crackling. Bones popped from time to time.
But around Amris, a hush seemed to fall. When he spoke, the words weren’t louder than normal, but bolder, heavier, written with thicker lines or set into metal rather than wood.
“How do you mean?” asked another soldier, not challenging but inviting:Tell us more. Please.
“We have allies fighting with us here already,” Amris said, and gestured to either side of them. “The mountains and the forest that funnel Thyran’s army into one spot. The walls that give us cover and height. All of these mean that we can do a great deal, even a hundred-odd against a few thousand—and all of this I’ve said before. But—”
Overhead, a cloud darkened the sky, throwing the light of burning bodies into greater contrast over all of them. Amris went on. “What I hadn’t said, save to myself, is that those beyond us, those with perhaps more troops and more mages, yet lack the advantages we have now, and that the twistedmen are not infinite. You’ve seen it yourselves; when they die, they stay dead, and while they can reproduce themselves, they can’t do so endlessly, or without wearying.”
