Blood in the Water (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Karn

The Second Battle of Tyrle,

21st of Aft-Autumn

The closer they drew to Tyrle, the closer Karn stayed to Duke Iruvain. No one questioned it. What other retinue did Triolle’s duke have?

He was riding with the sons of Duke Secaris’s most favoured vassal lords. Stern warriors flanked them all. The right to guard and guide Lord Cassat and his entourage was their reward for long and loyal service, instead of risking life and limb amid clashing swords.

Karn had heard the younger men speculating and the seasoned warriors weren’t immune to curiosity. Why had Duke Iruvain arrived in the dead of night, one sole attendant at his stirrup, both spattered with blood, smeared with muck?

Lord Cassat had been roused from his canvas bed, candles making lanterns of the tents as word spread. Never mind the wearisome day just endured, they must march on through the night. Never mind that both moons were showing less than a quarter, the Greater waxing, the Lesser waning. What did that matter, sergeants demanded, rousing reluctant militia with kicks and curses, when the night sky was blanketed with cloud regardless?

Karn’s horse tossed its head, uneasy as it smelled burning on the chill breeze. He wondered how fast and how far fire had spread through the town. The Soluran’s wizard had doubtless helped it on its way.

The road approaching Tyrle ran through market gardens trampled by the attackers’ boots, the stripped orchards scarred by greedy axes. Lord Cassat’s retinue didn’t slow.

Karn shifted in his saddle, frustrated. Advancing through the darkness, uncertain where enemy skirmishers might lurk, Lord Cassat and Duke Iruvain had kept their scouts close for fear of ambush.

If he’d had anyone else to trust to watch Duke Iruvain’s back, Karn would had ridden ahead. Knowing the enemy was at Tyrle was one thing. Knowing how they had deployed their regiments, their archers, that was quite another. But Lord Cassat had only sent scouts ahead once they’d passed the last waymark.

“Will we pen them up till Marlier’s Vixen arrives?” One thoughtful lieutenant turned to the older man at his side.

“Most likely,” grunted the grizzled sergeant.

There was a flurry of activity ahead. Outriders swiftly challenged a gaunt man on a lathered horse. Karn spurred his mount closer to Iruvain.

“The siege engines have been burned,” the man was saying as he was escorted in. “The traitors have taken the entrenchments, but the green grebe still flies from the Triolle Road Gate.”

“Are you sure?” Iruvain’s voice cracked with incredulity. “And Carluse?”

“The black boar flies at half mast,” the man said, troubled.

Karn wished he could see Iruvain’s face. Would he hold fast to what Karn had told him, after their desperate scramble through the confusion, escaping the town amid the mercenaries sent to reinforce the cowering militiamen in the entrenchments?

Duke Garnot had been the first to draw steel, so Duke Iruvain had no need to explain. Duke Garnot had forfeited all right to command when he had forbidden them to do their duty and hasten Draximal’s army to Tyrle’s aid. In the current crisis, it was best to say they’d left Duke Garnot alive. If the Soluran’s curs were accused of his murder, let that stiffen Carluse resistance.

Iruvain had finally nodded acquiescence. Arguing the justice of Duke Garnot’s death would merely distract everyone from saving Lescar.

Later, as they rode through the night, Iruvain had mused on his duty to protect Garnot’s orphaned daughters. If his brother Lord Roreth were to wed either one, Triolle’s influence could reach unbroken to Sharlac, once he asserted Litasse’s claims to her father’s dominions. Once this traitorous mob of exiles were defeated. Indeed, Karn had agreed. Privately he wondered if the unwed Lord Cassat intended advancing Draximal’s interests through a Carluse marriage.

The young nobleman had more immediate concerns. “The siege engines have been burned?”

How had that happened, Karn wondered?

“Where are the traitors concentrating their attack?” Iruvain demanded.

“On the Ashgil Gate, Your Grace,” the scout answered readily. “They’ve drawn up their forces along that road. They’re renewing their assault on the breach in the wall between the Ashgil Road and the Carluse Gate.”

“The forces inside the town pushed back that attack? And the Carluse Gate still holds?”

Karn shared Iruvain’s shock. Though he had to allow it was possible that the mercenary companies, Carluse’s remaining militia and Tyrle’s desperate townsfolk had repelled the assault.

“Your Grace!” Another scout forced his horse through the outriders. “The town’s defenders are attacking the earthworks!”

“Draw up our regiments for battle. Call the mercenary horse forward!”

Lord Cassat’s urgent orders mingled with Duke Iruvain’s questions.

“What banners can you see? Where are they coming from?”

Signal horns sent shivers down Draximal’s long column. Karn heard sergeants bellowing at their men.

“Where do we take our stand?” Duke Iruvain looked for some vantage point to secure a clear view of the town.

“We lead from the front!” Lord Cassat drew his sword.

Karn wasn’t so keen on that. He elbowed his way to Iruvain’s stirrup as the ducal retinue spurred towards Tyrle.

“We were right to get out when we did, Your Grace,” he observed as Iruvain looked around. “If Draximal’s army had stayed camped for the night, Tyrle would have been irretrievably lost.”

“That’s true.” Iruvain nodded. “That’s very true.”

Mercenary horsemen fanned out on either side of the road, Draximal’s red and gold sewn beside their blazons. They soon outstripped the foot soldiers, exhausted after their night march. The best those valiant men could manage was a purposeful jog-trot.

Battle was already joined outside Tyrle. Halberdiers were advancing out of the Triolle Gate beneath yellow and green pennants. The towers behind them were smashed to rubble but there was no visible breach in the walls. Karn guessed the defenders intended reclaiming these entrenchments now that dawn had shown them the bulk of the enemy’s forces was drawn up on the far side of the town. Who had seized command when they’d discovered Garnot was dead and Iruvain absent? Jophen of the Locksmiths? The Moonrakers’ Captain Ruivar?

The Soluran’s mercenaries were making a fight of it, already defiant on top of the earthworks.

“Ware arrows!” The leading horsemen swiftly passed the shout back.

Some of Draximal’s youthful lieutenants inadvertently checked their horses. Karn stayed close by Iruvain’s side. Even the most expert crossbowmen couldn’t reach them at this distance.

The attackers exposed on the earthworks were well within range of the archers on the broken battlements. An arrow storm swiftly drove them back into the entrenchments.

They reached the blackened remnants of a trebuchet. Karn kicked his horse mercilessly as the weary beast threatened to shy at the pungent charred timbers. Whatever fire arrow had found that in the darkness must have been the purest fluke. Duke Garnot was welcome to that little victory as he waited for Poldrion’s barge.

“They’re running!” Standing in his stirrups, Iruvain shouted over his shoulder to Karn. His voice hardened. “Come on! Lord Cassat’s not claiming the glory of saving Carluse!”

Draximal’s lordly retinue was forging onwards through broken fences and trampled vegetable patches. Ahead, Karn glimpsed men scrambling out of the entrenchments. Those mercenaries weren’t fool enough to be crushed between this hammer and the anvil of Tyrle’s walls. He saw the mercenary horse veer aside to pursue them until they were recalled by peremptory horn blasts.

“We’ll deal with those scum when we’ve secured the town!” Lord Cassat shouted to Iruvain.

The fleeing mercenaries were heading for their colleagues encamped along the Ashgil Road.

Iruvain shook his head, furiously. “As soon as they know we’ve reclaimed the Triolle Gate, they’ll throw all his reserves into the assault on the breach!”

Lord Cassat was unshaken. “Then we must get into the town before them. Once we have Tyrle, we can hold it till Ridianne of Marlier arrives. Her troops can attack those felons on three sides if they stay camped out on the road. And our bowmen can skewer them from Tyrle’s walls!”

All the retinue were listening intently to this shouted exchange. They cheered Lord Cassat’s assertions.

Karn wondered if the young noble was right. If the enemy won through the breach, the streets of Tyrle would run with the blood of mercenaries, militia and bystanders. Lescar hadn’t seen such slaughter as this, Karn thought distantly, since the battles across Marlier, Triolle and Parnilesse when he’d been a child. When everyone he’d known had died, even his own mother at his father’s hand to save her from famine, rape or worse.

Ahead, the galloping mercenaries were threading through gaps in the hastily dug earthworks. Karn saw the militia who’d come out of the Triolle Gate beckoning the horsemen onwards.

Iruvain set his own horse to jump one of the outermost trenches. The tiring beast baulked and Karn’s own horse reared away from the void. As the recalcitrant beast wheeled around, a curious noise rushed overhead. Karn saw flames erupting amid the marching companies still hurrying to catch up with Lord Cassat’s charge. The militiamen scattered with yells of alarm.

He forced his horse back to face the town. The distinctive rattling thump of a trebuchet sounded again, within the battered walls. Another missile soared overhead, detonating in a fiery burst. Terrified horses fought their riders, intent on fleeing the flames. But now the town’s so-called defenders were planting their halberds deep in the churned-up soil to impale the hapless animals. The deceitful archers on the walls were bringing down men and horses, aiming their arrows in earnest instead of harmlessly at the banks of turf.

He should have trusted his instincts. Tyrle had fallen just as Karn had foreseen. Those burned timbers hadn’t been all of the trebuchets. These fires assaulting them were Garnot’s final legacy, as the traitors made use of the pitch and oil the dead duke had demanded.

But the exiles’ mercenaries had sprung their trap too early. Fewer than half the Draximal horsemen had been caught between the entrenchments and the wall. Once the trebuchets’ reach along the Triolle Road was apparent, they could retreat and regroup. Karn wrenched his horse’s head around, bloody foam dripping from its mouth.

He reached for Duke Iruvain’s bridle, shouting, “We must rally to Lord Cassat’s standard!”

Horsemen were galloping towards the youthful lord’s banner from all directions. The advancing foot soldiers were halting a safe distance beyond the trebuchets’ range. All the enemy’s missiles did now was splash liquid fire around the entrenchments. The turf smouldered, merely throwing a rank pall of smoke over the Triolle Road.

Karn and Iruvain reached Lord Cassat’s retinue to hear him sending gallopers to all his captains. “The Tunnellers’ Sons are to draw up out of reach of those trebuchets. They must make sure no one comes out of the Triolle Gate to harry our flank—” He broke off as Iruvain arrived. “We nearly swallowed that poisoned bait!” he shouted with chagrin.

“Nearly but not quite!”

Karn understood Iruvain’s relief. Now no one could accuse him of fleeing the town before it had fallen. Instead, getting safely away proved his noble prudence, rather than condemning him for arrant cowardice.

Let Iruvain console himself with his delusions. The dukes still had to win the day. Karn swiftly assessed the unfolding battle, now the exiles were holding the town.

“I want an assessment of those forces holding the Ashgil Road.” Lord Cassat was sending his noble lieutenants hither and yon. “We will draw up along that cart track and advance on a broad front.” He turned to Duke Iruvain, his gestures expansive. “We must force them back from the walls. Dividing their forces to lure us in is all very well but they’ll see the error of their ways when we drive a wedge between them.”

“Our united numbers will become a crushing advantage,” Iruvain shouted back to show everyone he understood the tactical situation just as readily as the younger man.

Whatever companies the enemy had within the walls had little room for manoeuvre, Karn allowed. Once Lord Cassat’s army disposed of the troops outside the walls, either by killing them or driving them off, they could set about a siege of their own and wait for Marlier’s Vixen to arrive.

Draximal’s regiments were already advancing steadily on the exiles’ army ranged along the Ashgil Road. Experienced sergeants-at-arms held their men in check, saving all their strength for the murderous fighting to come. The solid ranks bristled with swords and polearms. The exiles’ companies were more thinly spread, visible gaps between each regiment.

The Draximal line was longer. Companies on either flank began to curve around, threatening the exiles with a crushing embrace. Militia and mercenaries alike began drumming their weapons upon their shields. The menacing beat underscored ominous chants from different companies, all promising painful death.

Would the mercenaries who’d followed the Soluran through his victories hold their ground in the face of defeat? Would they cut and run? Enough gold to fight for was seldom enough to die for.