Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) (10 page)

“Two minutes!” Knesek called back. The man was dripping sweat and sounded like a leaking blacksmith’s bellows.

Close enough. Turning to the rest, as not everyone was still working, she ordered, “Get ready to move out! Holly, stand as a point of gathering!”

Holly didn’t respond but waved her spear in the air again, signaling where she was. People started flocking to her in a semi-circle.

By the time that Siobhan made it off her perch and to Holly’s side, Beirly bellowed from the canal, “DONE!”

That hadn’t been two minutes. Not that she was complaining. Relieved, Siobhan yelled as loudly as she could, “MOVE!” Spinning about, she took off in as fast of a run as her aching legs would allow. She didn’t think for one minute that everyone heard her. Most were already waiting on her, though, and they readily followed.

As she ran, she kept a weather eye on the top of the wall. Things were definitely getting more hectic up there. People were shouting, and running back and forth. Either they were responding to an enemy force right next to their walls (one that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere) or someone up there had realized that the water going into the city had just been dammed up. Or possibly both. The first fountain was right inside the wall, after all, and it wouldn’t take brains to figure out that the water had been abruptly cut off.

The real question was, how fast would they react? Would they bother to open the gates and try to attack her people considering they were such a small force? Would they want to come outside and undo the dam? Siobhan wasn’t sure, so she ran sideways just long enough to take her people outside of bow range. No sense in exposing them when there was no need to.

They made it to the highway leading out of the southern gate without issue. There, Siobhan slowed her pace. Here was where they wanted to linger, without actually lingering, and act as bait to draw their enemy out of the city. Breathing hard, she put her hands on her knees and took several deep breaths. When she didn’t feel like her head was spinning anymore, she straightened and looked about her. Everyone looked as drained as she felt but she couldn’t let them rest here on the open road. Taking pity, she led them off at a quick walk, giving them some space to regain their breath. Besides, the Orinites in the city hadn’t made their move yet.

Nerves jangling, Siobhan kept stealing glances behind her, but they were now several hundred yards outside of the city with no sign that the gate would be opening soon. She mentally started cursing. It didn’t appear like their first plan would work.

Siobhan had spent a good amount of time thinking what to do if the first plan failed. Tran had suggested setting the wooden gates on fire, and so far, that was the best idea that anyone had. She was loathe for it to happen, though. The gate might fall, but it risked setting the rest of the city on fire as well, and they had just dammed up the only available water source, so wouldn’t setting anything on fire be a bad idea? She personally wanted a city to return to, not smoldering ruins.

But they had to do something quickly. Siobhan looked at the sky in open worry. The sun was rising steadily now and any minute, the sunlight would be strong enough for pathmaking. Grae, Rune, and Jay Fowler would bring people through, and when that happened, they had to be in a position to distract all of the men on the wall.

The creak of hinges sounded like a heavenly chorus singing through the air.

Siobhan spun around, a delighted smile blossoming on her face as she realized that while late, the enemy force had taken the bait. They only opened it far enough to let about two hundred men pour through, but that was enough.

“Alright, people, run scared!” Siobhan called, resisting the urge to laugh like a maniac.

The people around her didn’t resist the urge, but they were all winded enough that it came across strangled instead of merry, so their pursuers didn’t realize they were laughing. It sounded like choking ducks, actually. Not that she had ever heard a duck choke, but if it did, it would probably sound something like this.

Stumbling more than running, they bumped into each other as they moved, heading in the general direction of the highway. From an outside perspective, it probably looked chaotic, like they were so panicked that they were knocking into comrades in their efforts to escape. In truth, people were apologizing to each other breathlessly as they tripped, and others caught elbows and held them up. Siobhan could only hope they’d catch their wind soon, as the battle was only beginning.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Tran move, and with him, a small sea of people flowed in his wake. One group immediately ran ahead, straight for the gate, while the rest came and joined their rear, turning to face the onslaught. It was so perfectly timed that Siobhan almost cheered aloud. But no, cheering on a battlefield was probably a no-no. At the very least, it would be distracting.

She veered off, as planned, and raced back the way she had come. Her muscles still felt heavy with fatigue, but she had her wind back, and felt strong enough to fight. People moved with her, drawing weapons as they did so.

The two forces met somewhere near the middle. Siobhan was ruthless and cut down people without mercy as her swords met whatever weapons they held in their hands. Her focus narrowed down to a single point: get through these men as quickly as possible and then head straight for the gate so that she could help Tran hold it open. They could not, under any circumstances, allow that gate to close on them right now. Too many plans hinged on it staying open.

A near deafening cacophony sounded in her ears, a dreadful music made of screams, the clang on clang of metal, and wordless shouts of determination. It set her head to ringing. Still, she shouldered through it, and before she properly realized just how far she’d fought, she fetched up near the gates.

To her relief, they were still open, and Tran’s group was holding off any attacks from either side well. Tran, however, seemed upset about something. When she reached his side, she glanced at his face before setting her back to his.

“What’s wrong?” she shouted over the din.

“They should be here by now!”

Who? Oh, the other groups. Yes, of course, that was true. They had plenty of daylight, so where were the rest of them? Had something gone wrong? She couldn’t imagine that was the case, not with three Pathmakers going over every little detail to make sure it worked. Worried now, she tried to steal a peek toward the east, seeing if she could spot them coming. But there were far too many people in the way for that, and she wasn’t willing to budge far from Tran’s side now that she was here.

Time passed indeterminately, with no way for her to mark it, except perhaps by the number of opponents she defeated. Worried and frustrated that she couldn’t do anything from here, she took her anger out on anyone foolish enough to get close to her.

“HA!” Tran crowed, victory and relief evident in his voice.

“They’re here?” she asked, wanting to be absolutely sure she knew what that ‘ha’ was for.

“They’re here,” he confirmed for her before slamming his fist into a hapless jaw, sending the man flying backwards, out cold. “About time.”

She seconded that. Really, what had been the hold up?

Tran let out a boisterous laugh, sounding for all the world like a little boy with a new dirt pile to play in. “Now the fun really begins!”

Rune could not believe how hard it was to get three hundred people moving along one path. He was so used to caravans, or piling people up in carts, that it hadn’t occurred to him that it would take this long to move the whole group through on an open path. He’d already had it open for a full hour and he was just now getting to the end!

No one had foreseen how long this would take, not even Grae. The evergreen pattern was a wide one, so it was large enough for two men abreast to move through, but putting three hundred and fifty people two abreast on an open path was like forcing an ocean to trickle through a funnel. It had taken far longer than anyone had anticipated. Worse, for his group, they more or less waited on him to finish before moving out, as few of his people knew Goldschmidt well and needed him to lead the way. It was maddening. By the time the last person came through, Rune was ready to punch something.

The fight outside the walls was already in full swing. It seemed Tran and Siobhan had managed to get the gates open. He saw people in the gate archway fighting, at least, and even from here he could see Tran’s head. He was tall enough to loom over everyone else.

Rune’s job, after getting everyone here, was to get inside the city and head straight for the eastern gate and force it open. The more gates they had open, the better. But before that, he had to check on his people. If anyone from his guild was in trouble, he was grabbing them and sticking them near the path to take back to Converse. His guild was more important to him than this city.

Fortunately for Hyun Woo’s plans, Rune saw Siobhan, Tran, and Beirly fighting just in front of the open gate. They had their backs to each other, in a triangular formation, and none of them took more than two steps out before falling in again. Neither Siobhan nor Beirly had much training fighting in that position, but both had watched the enforcers train, and apparently that had been enough to give them a feel for it. It was a little awkward still, but they were executing it well enough that no one attacking could seem to isolate them and take someone down. And that was good.

Relieved, Rune sucked in a deep breath and yelled to Tran, “WE’RE HERE!”

“GOOD!” Tran bellowed back, sounding like a war horn. “GO!”

He went, not questioning or second guessing the fighting skill of those three. If they’d held up through the initial rush, then they could take anything else thrown at them.

Getting through the gate with three hundred and fifty people was a real trick. Everyone was crammed into the archway, enemy and ally alike. Granted, this space was built to handle two or three wagons abreast, but when over eight hundred people were crammed into it, it became about as passable as quicksand. Rune had to use excessive force just to carve a path through, and even then, he had to focus on the area right next to the wall to manage it. If he succeeded in getting his entire group past this mess, it would be a bona fide miracle.

Finally, he broke free, or at least, free-ish. But of course, on the other side, there were at least two thousand men fighting to get through and block his path. Alright, well, it wasn’t two thousand, it was probably less than that as the enemy forces in this city were being distracted on all sides by attackers. It just felt like two thousand to him.

Hissing breath in and out between clenched teeth, he gathered himself and launched into this new fray, determined to get through and to the next street. If he could just manage that, it would be a straight shot to the eastern gate.

Of course, there was nothing easy about it. Never mind that he had walked this direction hundreds of times and could probably do it blindfolded by now. The sheer volume of angry, armed people in his path made going three inches a real challenge, let alone three feet. He ducked, weaved, kicked, punched, and at one point, hopped his way forward, and just prayed that the people in his group could keep up. No way he could go back for any of them at this point.

When he reached the corner, he scrambled up onto an iron-wrought balcony and used it as a perch so he could catch his breath and get a bird’s eye view of the street. For the most part, his men had managed to keep up, although he was losing a few to side streets. That was bad, he needed everyone to stay together.

Rune was not normally loud. In fact, he avoided ‘loud’ like one would avoid a barrel of dung. His specialty lay in being sneaky and one did not do well at sneaky if they were also loud. So doing what he was about to do went against every instinct. He was up high, there was no cover, and he was surrounded by enemy forces below. Past history told him to stay still and quiet until it was safe to move; but a commander couldn’t afford to do that. Hyun Woo had drilled that over and over into his head. Instead, he had to do the exact opposite: he had to be loud and visible.

Ignoring his thumping heart and jangling nerves, he took in a deep breath, trying to project his voice as he had been taught. “EAST GATE! THIS STREET!”

From here, he could see heads turn as they sought him out. Then he saw a few waves of confirmation, and the stragglers that had been heading the wrong direction reversed themselves and came toward him, one footstep at a time. Relieved he didn’t have to yell anymore, he put his hands on the rail and nimbly swung back down, taking out two men as he did by using them as a landing pad.

Then he waded back into the fray.

Hit, hit, duck, kick, repeat. Rune fell into a rhythm and the violence and the sounds washed over him. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears was louder than anything else. He was ten steps into the street when it occurred to him that half the reason why he was so annoyed was simply the lack of creativity on his enemy’s part. These people only had three moves. They either came at him overhand, or they sliced at his chest, or they tried to charge and stab. Really, was that all they could think to do? Didn’t they have any technique or skill at all?