“I thought I’d help Brother Harin with the wounded,” Veliss said as they dressed. “Not much else I can do now, is there?”

She stared at Reva with wide eyes, a frown of desperate hope on her brow. Reva strapped her sword across her back and paused to plant a kiss on her lips. “Stay safe.” She brushed the tousled hair back from Veliss’s forehead. “I love you.”

? ? ?

The Kuritai gave a soft grunt as the sword slashed across his eyes, the only time she had witnessed one express any pain. She leapt and planted both feet on his chest as he slashed the air, blind but still deadly. The kick propelled him to the wall, sending him tumbling over onto the heads of his comrades. Reva rolled to her feet, dodging sword thrusts from three directions, the House Guards closing around her, halberds stabbing and slashing.

She did a quick head count, finding she had lost half her command already. She glanced over at the inner wall around the first breach, noting the piles of Volarian dead and the constant rain of arrows delivered by the archers on the rooftops. But there was a cohesion to the attackers now, a hard knot of shielded men inching forward with more crowding in behind. It’s time.

“Break!” she shouted, lunging forward to spear the exposed neck of a Kuritai, then turning and running with the guards. They were faster than any practice, sprinting down the steps and vaulting the first of the rings without losing any more to the pursuing enemy. The Kuritai didn’t pause in their charge, coming on at a run to scale the new wall but falling by the dozen to the archers on the rooftops above. Those that did make it over were hopelessly outnumbered and soon hacked down.

“Remember the signal,” she told Sergeant Laklin. “Three blasts of the horn and you break for the next ring.”

“I remember, my lady.” Laklin wiped his sweat-streaked brow and gave a grin. “Made them pay for it, didn’t we?”

“That we did. Let’s see if we can exact the full price.”

She ran for the western section where Antesh was assembling his companies after breaking from the breach defences. She was forced to duck as one of the Volarian fireballs came crashing down a few yards ahead, scattering bricks and embers in a blast of heat and smoke. Antesh had anticipated this tactic, forming firefighting companies to safeguard the streets between the rings. They came running now with buckets in hand, older people mostly with a few youngsters. They attacked the blaze with all the ferocity of a company of guardsmen, sand and water quelling the flames in a few minutes. It had been surprisingly small considering the size of the fireball.

“Pays to live in a city of stone, my lady,” the fire-company leader said, a brawny woman of middling years Reva recognised from the line of petitioners the day she had intruded into the manor. Despite her words Reva could see half a dozen columns of smoke rising from the surrounding streets, evidence that some parts of the city were not so immune to fire.

? ? ?

“No letup, lads!” Antesh was on the rooftop overlooking the western section. He had placed his command post atop the home of the masons guild, the most sturdily built structure in the city, the walls thick and the windows narrow, perfect for bowmen. Below them the Volarians clustered about the wall with shields raised, more pouring through the breach behind. The Volarians seemed to be assaulting the wall itself rather than attempting to climb it, the occasional flash of short swords through the shields told of a concerted effort to hammer their way through the recently finished brickwork.

Reva took a clay pot of lamp oil and threw it at the knot of shields, the liquid exploding across them as it shattered. She followed it with a fire arrow, the Volarians soon forced to abandon their flaming shields, most perishing under the instant volley from the archers above. But there were more trooping through the breaches, always more.

From the right came the sound of two horn blasts, the signal for an imminent breach. “Keep holding here!” she told Antesh and sprinted for the nearest walkway.

Two battalions of Free Swords were attacking at different points along the north-facing ring, one was being held but the other had managed to force a toehold on the other side, a small but growing cluster of shields constantly assailed from above by a rain of arrows and other missiles. The defenders here were mostly townsfolk stiffened with a few archers and guardsmen, their lack of expertise remedied in some part by their ferocity. She saw a large, elderly man in the leather smock of a carpenter charge at the Volarian cluster with an axe in hand, several young apprentices close behind. On the surrounding rooftops people hurled rocks and bottles at the enemy along with a torrent of abuse.

“Die, you heretic fuckers!” a young woman screamed, lifting a large piece of masonry over her head and hurling it at the Volarians. It landed in the middle of their shields, leaving a hole. Reva saw her chance, sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt. She landed on the Free Sword who tried to lift his shield to plug the gap, breaking her fall and forcing him to the cobbles. The sword plunged through his open mouth and into his brain. She leapt again as the short swords came for her, spinning and twisting, the sword a flicker of silver, finding eyes and throats with terrible precision. Seeing her intervention, the townsfolk redoubled their efforts, the old carpenter laying about with his axe and voicing a roar as his apprentices hacked away with hatchets and hammers. Others came running from the surrounding houses, armed with knives and cleavers. Some had no weapons at all, running and leaping onto the Free Swords, hurling punches and gouging eyes.

The Volarian cluster soon broke apart under the assault, some trying to scramble back over the wall only to pitch over with arrows in their backs. Others fought to the end, one man managing to hold the townsfolk back as he stood over a fallen comrade, his sword moving with the expert economy and effect of a veteran as he forced the townsfolk to hold off. He snarled at them, shouting curses in his own language as they steeled themselves for the final rush, then stiffened at the sight of Reva.

“You’re very brave,” she observed, attacking without a pause. It was over quickly, the brave veteran coughing his last as her sword found the inch-wide gap below his breastplate.

“May I?” Reva asked the carpenter, gesturing for his axe. He handed it over in wordless awe.

“This man,” she told them, standing astride the veteran’s corpse and reaching down to remove his helmet. “Is probably a hero to our enemies. They need to know what happens to heroes in this city.”

She could hear the shouted orders on the other side of the wall, sergeants and officers marshalling their men for another try. The voices stilled to silence after she cast the veteran’s head over the wall.

“You fought well,” she told the townsfolk with a smile, keeping the annoyance from her voice as they all knelt before her. “Gather these weapons and stand ready. This is far from over.”

? ? ?

They held the outer ring until nightfall. The breakthrough came in the east-facing wall, a slave-soldier battalion suffering fearful casualties to bring down a section of wall with a battering ram, Kuritai rushing through to consolidate the success. Lord Arentes had ordered three horn blasts sounded and the pre-rehearsed withdrawal commenced. Archers covered the retreat from the rooftops, loosing five arrows then retreating twenty paces to pause and loose five more. In the streets below people hauled carts and furniture to bar the path of the onrushing Volarians for a few precious seconds before running to the next ring.

Reva took her bow and stood on the tallest rooftop behind the second ring, watching the last of the defenders running across the fifty yards of flattened city that formed the killing ground. Fortunately the Volarians’ blood was up; this was the fruit of their labours after all, slaughter and rape the inevitable reward for those who take a city. So they came streaming into the killing ground, swords raised, blood-crazed and shieldless.

Later, Antesh called it the finest hour in Cumbraelin archery and it had certainly been a spectacular sight. So many arrows crowded the air it was difficult to see the effect, like peering through smoke to glimpse the fire beyond. Reva loosed six arrows in as many seconds, Arken straining to match her as he stood at her side, grimacing in pain with every draw of his longbow. The storm continued for a full minute, not a single Volarian soldier making it to the second ring. Antesh called a halt and the air cleared, revealing a carpet of bodies covering the killing ground, none closer than a dozen yards to the wall. The survivors could be seen hovering in the shelter of the streets beyond, a few men stumbling about in the open with arrows protruding from their limbs, Varitai from their oddly calm expressions.

Reva finished them herself, one arrow each, an ugly growl rising from the defenders when the last fell, soon building to a prolonged roar of hate-filled defiance.

? ? ?

There was no respite that night, the Volarians trying fire in place of massed assaults, throwing oil pots over the ring followed by fire arrows. Once again the stones of the city came to their aid and most of the fires were swiftly quelled. But whilst stone couldn’t burn, people could and Brother Harin soon had dozens of burnt souls crowding the cathedral. She had given it over to him as a healing house, the pews transformed into beds, becoming ever more full by the hour. Only one of the bishops had had the temerity to object, a wizened old cleric who held on to his staff with gnarled and trembling hands, scowling at her as he quoted the Ninth Book: “‘Only peace and love can reside in a house blessed by the Father’s sight.’”