Firemoon (17 page)

People ran out on the streets as Katja strode towards the coming fight. Some just looked around as if they wanted to see the sounds and then fled back into their homes. Others called out their neighbours in the hope that they had further information. And others ran about, perhaps to form groups as in the mornings, or to tend to some last detail before the fun began.

Katja paid them no heed. She gazed through the houses and walls blocking her view and stared at her goal.

Things were strangely calm by the outer wall. Everyone had known this was coming, after all, and most possible preparations had already been made. And people were expecting a fight in the morning, or rather a northern nobleman on horseback, bringing his king’s final ultimatum. Katja was one of the very few in the city who knew that the rules had changed.

Officers stood by the poles which held up the bell that had begun the announcement. They were arranging who would stand guard during the night, and who would sleep in the outer city to be ready in case of something unexpected. There was a certain reassurance in that, but it did mean that a large portion of the defenders would spend the night in their homes.

Katja herself intended to move about as she damn well pleased. She could fulfil her duties no other way. So she stared straight ahead and strode purposefully as if she had some place to be, which of course she did. No-one accosted her and she made it up on the wall, taking up position just south of the gate house.

The evening was sliding into true darkness, but the lights the northerners were presumably up in their camp by gave indication of their numbers. Thousands were at work out there.

There you lot are
, she thought, and stared at the dots of light which were almost all she could see of her enemies.
There YOU are, Peter.

Then she looked around and down onto the street.

Captain Jormundur stood close by, illuminated by a lamp carried by a servant, and seemed to be receiving reports from his closest officers.

Suddenly she felt something start in the camp. Something unclean was growing. Something familiar.

Katja stared out onto the plain and clenched her teeth. Where had she sensed this before? What were the bastards attempting so far from the city? Did Peter Savaren intend to summon monsters and throw them straight onto the wall? Had she mistaken his intentions?

But no, she did not sense hatred or consciousness in this spell. She thought back on the spells she had encountered, and as the sorcery in the camp approached some kind of climax Katja remembered.

Vaantrepfa
. The dulling fog. The old, powerful spell Tovar had tried to use on Baldur’s City. This was
that
sensation. Except now it was happening faster. Much, much faster.

Katja looked around herself at the tense, darkened faces, most of which were looking out at the plain. What could she do? What could she possibly do, besides climb down the wall and spring across the plain to kill Peter before he could finish? Which it was too late for, anyway.

Nothing.

She could do nothing to stop the spell or prepare people for what was coming. And the fact filled her with utter helplessness in the moments before the fog came.

To her human senses Katja felt it start as a faint buzzing in her ears. Then sounds began to fade out and a moment later the fog appeared. It appeared all over as opposed to blowing in from a direction, a grey-white veil that obscured everything. People began to react to this clearly unnatural fog. There were some shouts of “Fire!”, others began to wave their hands in hopes of wafting it away.

But then the numbness came. The fog shut out noise and smell, obscured vision, and the body itself seemed to lose feeling. Katja pulled the collar of her shirt up and put it over her nose, but knew damn well that this wasn’t a poison that went through the lungs. She wobbled and supported herself up against the battlements. Her mind seemed to be slipping away, like fine sand between her fingers.

Her vision was severely limited, and those she could see either lay down or fell.

Katja reminded herself of what was happening, what she needed to do, but the strength slid from her grasp, leaving behind a crushing weight and hopelessness. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to give in to the sweet, seductive power of the fog and surrender to peaceful oblivion.

It’s so easy. I just have to relax. No fear. No need. Just silence.

But though her five senses were fading away her sixth one remained, and it still screamed about terrible danger and sorcery outside the wall. She was in danger. The city, and more, was in danger if the Brotherhood of the Pit seized power again.

Katja raised a weak arm up to her mouth, managed to slip her fingers in between her teeth and bit down. The pain sharpened her a bit and enabled her to bite harder, which then drove the numbness further away.

We have a certain resistance to such things
, Serdra’s voice said in her mind.
But willpower has to make up the difference.

Power, Katja thought, and recalled the more drawn-out sparring sessions with Serdra. The times her mentor had pressed her mercilessly without breaks or accepting surrender. Just pushed and pushed and pushed until Katja thought her heart would fail if her lungs did not rupture first. The point had been to teach her what she was truly capable of, so she would continue after all but considering herself beaten.

“I am a Redcloak!” she hissed with anger at the forces trying to fell her. She pushed herself away from the battlements and somehow managed to stand without support.

I am a Redcloak and I will not let myself be brought down like this!

She did it. The spell sapped her strength and slowed her thoughts but she resisted the sleep.

The fog began lifting shortly afterwards. Visibility cleared and Katja sensed the sorcery fade away. Her ears still told her nothing, though. Utter silence reigned. Pine City had succumbed to the power of the dulling fog, and its defenders and residents lay like driftwood where they had fallen.

The fog vanished completely and left behind a city with only one waking person.

Katja tried taking one step. Her balance was unreliable but she managed the second and third one with more confidence.

“Wake up,” she croaked weakly and kicked the nearest man. He did not make a sound.

“Wake up!” she said more forcefully and kicked another one.

She looked towards the plain and fully expected to see the army rushing towards them, but the few lights remained where they were. No war cries could be heard as officers urged their men on. No thundering of hooves and squeaking of wheels.

What are they doing?
Katja thought, and suspected she had very little time to figure it out. The northerners were no more resistant to the dulling fog than others. Now that it had dissipated, the time to attack had to be at hand.

Katja took one of the torches arranged next to the nearest lamp and lit it. She prodded a soldier at her feet and then pressed the burning end to his unprotected hand.

“Wake up!”

The man groaned weakly and pulled his hand away from the flame, but neither as quickly nor as forcefully as Katja would have thought natural.

A small force
, she thought and attempted her remedy on another man. It had to be. They weren’t making an all-out assault out of fear of waking the city. It was the only explanation her mind could come with in a hurry. Assuming that the sorcerous scum understood what they were doing, it had to mean that the victims could be roused in time.

She walked among unconscious bodies and poked with the torch and kicked vigorously. The people began coming to somewhat, but not enough.

Something came up on the parapet with a metallic clang. Katja started and squinted. It was a large hook on a rope. Someone down on the ground yanked and the hook found solid purchase.

Katja drew an arrow and jogged to the hook on silent feet as a weight tightened the rope. Someone was climbing up.

She nocked the arrow, leaned out through one of the embrasures and loosed it. The man on the rope was hit and fell with a scream. He hit the man beneath him but that one maintained his grip.

“There!” someone shouted and Katja heard an arrow whizz her way. It hit the battlements and Katja heard the creaking of another bow and fell back out of sight.

Another hook was thrown up on the wall right by the gatehouse.

Katja retreated south along the wall and leaned back out with an arrow at the ready. They meant to open the gate, send in a stealthy team to open the gate and let a larger force inside.

She released the arrow, went back into cover for a moment and then leaned back out with the next one. Her danger sense pulled her back just before two arrows flew by.

The one she had shot off the rope was still screaming, but she didn’t think she had hit anyone the second time. She could barely see anything down on the ground, but up here she was among burning lights and so they saw her just fine.

The third hook made an entrance almost up against the gatehouse.

Katja put the bow away and took a glaive from a soldier’s limp grip, running with it to the first hook. Too much weight rested on it for her to move it by hand, and so she put the blade to the rope.

But she was not dealing with fools. The rope was thick and the glaive was a sturdy weapon, not a fine-edged razor. Katja heard groans of effort and feet scraping outside the wall as she made fruitless efforts to sever the rope, and then the first one came.

He knew she was there and drew a short sword as he tried to get himself up on the wall. He made a wonderful target and Katja drove the glaive into him with a powerful strike. He fell backwards into the darkness and Katja quickly peeked out and drove the polearm downwards.

She hit the next man in the head and he went the same way, then she went back into cover before an archer could react. For a moment there was no tension in the rope, which allowed her to snatch the hook off the battlements and throw it back where it had come from.

Men were ascending the other ropes and Katja ran along the wall with the glaive at the ready.

She had known very well that she could not fight an army by herself. Would she now have to do it anyway?!

“WAKE UP, WAKE UP!” she shouted. “ASSAULT!”

The first man on the next rope was clearly akin to a squirrel and had a hand up on the parapet as Katja arrived with the glaive. He let himself drop rather than climb up straight into the blade and caught hold of the rope. Katja leaned forward and thrust at him but didn’t connect. He climbed down a bit as the steel tip hung over his head.

“Shoot her!” he shouted, and an arrow bounced off the stones next to Katja.

The first hook was back up on the wall.

I should have thrown it down onto the street!
Katja thought, and felt the mistake was unforgivable.

She heard the fourth hook come up on the other side of the gatehouse.

The third hook produced a man with an axe between his teeth. He leapt down on the walkway as Katja made another attempt to stab the squirrel. The man took the axe out of his mouth and drove it into a sleeping soldier. Katja abandoned the hook and ran at this unwelcome guest.

He threw the axe, forcing her to dodge, and then took a spear from the dead man. He tried to reach for a shield as well, but didn’t have enough time. Katja slashed at him, but he had a long weapon of his own and parried. Then he thrust back at her, as another man began climbing up behind him.

Katja let the shafts meet and pushed the man back. He fell up against the battlements and his comrade hesitated over the situation. Katja seized the chance to look back as she heard a noise. Vajan had come up on the wall with a sword in his hand, hatred in his eyes and a man at his back.

This won’t work!

Katja threw the glaive at them for the sake of a moment’s distraction and then leapt off the wall.

She landed on a storage shed and rolled like Serdra had taught her, going over the edge of the roof. The cobblestones did not receive her gently, but she knew how to ignore pain and sprang up on her feet. She ran towards the bell that had rung at the arrival of the northerners and took every opportunity to step on a sleeping body on her way, in hopes of waking them up.

“Bow!” someone shouted up on the wall. Katja heard footsteps in the stairway. Vajan issued orders and a door opened. They were entering the gatehouse to open the portcullis.

She grasped the bell rope and pulled it with her into cover behind the poles. Then she yanked with both hands and all her strength for maximum noise.

The bell rang and rang and the prone bodies began reacting. Katja sensed danger, peeked at the farther part of the wall from where she could be seen, and spotted an archer.

She leapt to the side to keep the poles between the two of them, and kept pulling the rope. The people had begun groaning, sitting up and trying to get their bearings. But she also heard the portcullis beginning to rise.

Two men who had followed her down came at a run, both wielding swords. Katja had no time to think of anything clever. She drew her own sword and ran towards them. The one in the lead missed as she darted past him, and then slashed him in the back. The other one managed to parry the blow she then directed at him, but she followed it by slashing his leg and then stabbing him in the torso as he fell.