The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (51 page)

‘Isak.’ Carel approached carrying a skin of wine and some ripped
pieces of bread. ‘Get something into your stomach, boy, it’ll give you strength.’ The old man handed Isak a chunk of bread. It looked rather
pathetic in his huge hand, but he recognised the need to eat some
thing, however small.

‘What’s wrong, lad? Are you injured?’

Isak shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. He was keeping more and more from the one man who knew him better than anyone;
one of the few people he knew he could trust absolutely; it was begin
ning to look like there was never a good time for the truth.

‘My life has become more complicated,’ Isak eventually managed.

Carel frowned, then squatted down next to Isak with his sabre resting on his shoulder so he was close enough to whisper, ‘What happened in the arena? Something Mihn said?’

‘No, we don’t have time right now - and anyway, none of it matters if we don’t survive today.’ The dark corner of his soul wanted to
laugh.
If this is all true then it doesn’t matter what you do. You’ll not die
here unless the dark knight appears, and he won’t. You know who he is
already. You’re just too scared to face the truth. Go and cower behind the
battlements, watching others die and waiting for your time.

‘And that’s it,’ Isak said aloud. ‘There are others, and they matter. Perhaps they matter enough that the truth shouldn’t be hidden.’

‘Isak? What are you talking about, boy?’ Carel sounded bewildered,
perhaps worried Isak was losing his mind.

‘Nothing.’ Isak dismissed the question with a wave of the hand and stood upright again. Now that he’d made his decision, Isak felt new
purpose filling him. ‘Call the battle hymn. The enemy is coming.’

‘Ah, Isak, lad, that’s only supposed to come from Lord Bahl, from the Lord of the Farlan. They’ll sing it for you, but… it’d be wrong.
People might think you meant rebellion.’ Carel sounded anguished as he spoke, his loyalties torn.

It seemed strange to Isak, but he knew the pride Carel set in those few lines of verse.

‘Better that it would, but I
am
Lord of the Parian now,’ The catch in
his voice was unexpected. ‘Carel, Lord Bahl died this afternoon. Pass the word on. Tell them to sing to Lord Bahl’s honour - I’ll not have a
defeat as his memorial.’

The word spread quickly. The Parian soldiers seemed to sag at the news, as though the rock their lives had been founded upon was now gone. Lord Bahl had led their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers into victorious battle. He was the eternal hero who arrived
bearing the vengeance of the Gods. And now he was dead. The cornerstone of their nation was suddenly, unexpectedly, gone.

Only Carel, striding amongst them, stopped men from dropping
hopelessly to the floor. Whispering fiercely in the ear of one, clapping a firm hand on the shoulder of the next; one by one he roused in them
the love they’d had for their Lord. In the heat of battle, their passion burned with sudden and terrible intensity. Cold fury showed in their
eyes as they waited for the enemy. The battle hymn came softly from
their lips. Now they were angry.

When the enemy came, it looked a final desperate attempt. Any remaining mages of the White Circle had fled in fear of Isak, but a division of Fysthrall warriors led the attack. They didn’t look human in the firelight. Their blue-green scaled armour glowed eerily, and
they seemed to jerk and shuffle as they raised the ladders.

As Isak watched them come to an accompaniment of the whistle of
arrows, the sight of them evoked an elusive memory of glinting bodies and huge bronze war-hammers shining in the light of an unnatural fire
- but he couldn’t remember any more. Faces and names eluded him as the present intruded on his thoughts.

Scores of arrows kept the defenders down as the Fysthrall swarmed up to attack. White-eyes stood on the tops of the ladders while they were being raised, ready to leap over the battlements the moment wood met stone, when they started striking out with fierce abandon, brandishing their long-handled battle-axes. The first Ghost to come
within range was caught in the armpit, the bronze-inlaid blade cutting
deep, but it caught on the inside of his cuirass and fell with the man. The Fysthrall abandoned his axe and pulled a pair of short swords from his belt. He started trading blows with Carel before Ghosts on
either side impaled him.

Elsewhere the white-eyes didn’t fall so easily and brutally cut the defenders down… but the battle hymn of the Ghosts was taken up
by the Kingsguard now and it echoed down the wall.

The captain of the Fysthrall white-eyes charged up and over, heading straight for Isak, screaming a challenge as he battered a path to
the new Parian Lord.

Isak waited for him, sword and shield forward to meet the enchanted axes in the captain’s hands. The Fysthrall white-eye roared at Isak and began to rain blows down on him. With bodies piling up on the ground and more men coming up the ladder there was little room to move, but Carel managed to slip around to cut at the back of the Fysthrall’s leg. The blow glanced off his armour, but it distracted
the white-eye enough for Isak to start his own attack.

Now using all his speed and power, Isak hacked away, until Eolis caught the shaft of one axe and sliced through. A burst of red appeared as the magic in the blade suddenly ran wild and, in a cloud of light, the uncontrolled energies wrapped themselves around the captain’s arm. Isak heard the sizzle of burning flesh as the man cried out in pain and lowered his guard. The next blow sheared through his throat.

Isak carefully kicked the corpse off into the palace gardens and looked around, spotting Carel as the old man cried out. Throwing
himself forward in controlled fury, Isak struck off the offender’s arm,
then smashed his shield into the man’s face. The Fysthrall screamed
in agony, but the cry was cut off as Eolis punctured his heart.

The enemy held a small stretch of wall now and were trying to
drive a wedge through the Farlan Ghosts. Isak ploughed in, swinging wide strokes they couldn’t avoid, so crowded together were they.
A sword got through his guard, but was turned by Siulents, and in a
heartbeat Isak had kicked out and heard the crouching man’s neck
snap, all the while he was stabbing through another man’s breastplate into his heart.

‘Isak,’ King Emin called, a way behind him, ‘we’re being swamped. Pull back to the keep.’ As he spoke, another tremor ran though the wall. Isak looked around in confusion. He turned aside the last man’s sword and watched agony flower on his face as a Kingsguard stabbed him in the ribs, then stopped and opened his senses. He couldn’t feel any mages in the area, but the walls shook again and he realised they wouldn’t hold for much longer.

Looking over the battlements he saw the reason for the wall’s shaking: a battering ram was being backed away from the wall for another
run. Its brass head glowed with magic. It appeared the enemy did not trust any of the king’s gates now: they would come in through the
walls where no daemons were lurking, waiting to cause even more
death and destruction.

Isak smiled grimly, they were probably right not to trust the gates. He cut away all the ladders he could reach again, then shouted back,
‘We’re going.’ He turned to Carel, worried by the way the old man’s
face was contorted in pain and fatigue.

A horn was sounded and immediately all King Emin’s men and
Isak’s own party turned and ran for the nearest stair. Isak gave Carel a shove, but he stumbled and was caught by one of the Ghosts, who
grabbed his arm and helped him on. Mihn didn’t move, waiting for
Isak.

‘Go, I’ll follow once everyone is off,’ he said, waving Mihn away, but the small man didn’t move. ‘Do what I tell you!’ Isak shouted, wanting him clear. ‘Get down that stair now!’

Mihn frowned at Isak for a moment, trying to work out what he was going to do, then bobbed his head. I’ll wait for you by the gate, but I’ll not go in until you do.’

As Mihn left, Isak saw men of the Brotherhood run down the
walkway towards the advancing troops. Each one carried bottles with
burning rags in the neck. They threw them down the walkway and
as the bottles smashed, the stone caught aflame, creating a barrier to
protect the fleeing soldiers. That done, the King’s Men ran, collecting up the few stragglers yet to leave, cutting down the last few enemies, until they were on their way to safety.

Isak watched them join the crowd clustered around the keep’s gate.
The wall shook again; it was about to crumble. The pop and grind of splitting stone screamed in the air. He ran to the head of the stair; they were running out of time. The wall would give in the next few
blows and Emin’s troops would be caught in the open and slaughtered
as they gathered at the small gate of the keep, waiting for space to
move to safety. Behind him the wall groaned and lurched. Two huge
blocks of stone fell inwards and crashed down. Isak grabbed at the battlements as the walkway shuddered underneath him. He looked
around: the flames were still too ferocious to cross. There might still
be time.

Carel was halfway across the palace gardens when he heard stones
falling and he turned back to see Isak balanced precariously, ten yards
from the breach - and then only five as another piece collapsed. Through the gap he could see pike-heads, black against the firelight behind. Any more and the mercenaries would walk straight in. He
looked around and saw how many were fighting to get into the keep
- and here came Count Vesna’s companies sprinting towards them
from the rear of the palace, desperate to reach the gate in time.

Carel turned back to look at Isak, then drew Arugin again as four men ran towards them from the nearest tower, outstripped by the solders who’d been there. They stopped dead as he stepped forward. Unarmed and dressed in bright colour, they had to be the king’s
mages.

‘You four, do something to help him.’

One looked over at the silver figure on the walls. Isak was kneeling down on the wall with his shield raised above his head. The stair was
within reach, but he wasn’t looking at it.

‘Help him?’ another replied incredulously. He was young, little
older than Isak himself. His orange and blue robes were expensive;
they’d have looked impressive this morning, no doubt. Now they were
stained and scorched. ‘We’ve got to get away,’ he explained.

‘What?’ Carel asked. ‘Why?’

‘He’s calling down the storm, using his magic to bring it to him.
The lightning will follow anything drawing magic. Please, let us pass!’
He sounded desperate, as if he were pleading with every remaining
ounce of his strength.

Before Carel could reply, Commander Brandt appeared. ‘What’s he
doing up there?’ he asked. The watchman seemed furious more than
anything else. His battered armour was covered in blood, but if it was
his own the man didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘Buying us some time. If they breach it now we’ll be slaughtered.’

Brandt looked back at the men fighting to get into the keep, then
at Isak.

‘He’s not going to manage it alone. Look.’ Brandt pointed to the intact side of the wall where the mercenaries were slowly making their way forward, throwing corpses on to the roaring flames to smother them.

‘You.’ Brandt grabbed the oldest of the mages. ‘The enemy were
throwing men up on to the walls by magic - can you do that?’

The man looked blank for a moment, lost in panic, then his face
cleared. ‘I think so, Commander, it’s a simple spell. With four of us
together, yes.’

‘Good.’ Brandt drew his sword, causing the mage to shrink back in fear. ‘Then get me up there now, or we’re all dead.’

‘We’ll need time-‘

‘You don’t have it. I know about magic: draw as much as you can and get it done. If I’m still here in half a minute I swear you’ll be the
first to die.’

The mage opened his mouth to object, then looked again at the
bloody sword and slammed it shut. He walked around Brandt until
he could see Isak over the commander’s shoulder. Taking hold of an
object at his belt he took a deep breath while the other mages stepped
forward to place their hands on his shoulders and lend their strength. He closed his eyes, almost giddy with the rampant magic in the air.
The mage’s eyelids shuddered with panic as he felt the power flowing in from the other mages. It felt like an age as he lifted his trem
bling hand; the energy inside was scorching his fingers as it waited to be released - and then, suddenly, the magic took over and his
palm slammed against Brandt’s cuirass. He felt the raw power blossom
all around and the commander falling away before unconsciousness
enveloped him.

‘By the eyes of Fate, who’s that?’ The Kingsguard pointed over the battlements as they watched a figure land heavily a few yards from
Lord Isak.

‘Gods, that’s Brandt,’ muttered the king as the figure clambered to his feet. A line of mercenaries were inching towards him. ‘Don’t just gape, you fools, help him!’

Those soldiers with bows began to fire down on the figures edging cautiously towards the commander. Flames dripped from the walkway as Brandt started slashing wildly at the lead soldier, who was nearly upon him. The man slipped on the bloody stone and landed on a
burning patch, setting his own clothes alight.