“‘Turn not your gaze from those in need,’” she countered, calling on the Second Book. “‘For the Father never will.’ Get out of the way, old man.”

The burnt people were a pitiable sight, hair singed away, flesh turned black and red, given to terrible screams that only abated with large doses of redflower. “Another day like this and it’ll all be gone,” Veliss advised. She wore a plain dress covered in bloodstains and sundry dirt, sleeves rolled up and hair tied back, soot and sweat mingling on her face. Reva wanted very badly to kiss her, here and now in full view of the scowling old bishop and the Father, if in fact He ever cared to spare a glance for this place, which she doubted.

“Careful love,” Veliss said quietly, reading her gaze. “Turns out they’ll tolerate a lot, more than ever I thought they would. But not us.”

“I don’t care,” Reva said, reaching for her hand.

“Just win the battle, Reva.” Veliss’s thumb traced over her hand for a moment before she released it. “Then we’ll decide what we care most about.”

? ? ?

The second ring held through the night but by morning a fire had taken hold in a building near the south-facing wall. It was a storehouse for the weavers guild, packed with linens. The fire was too fierce to be contained, the heat soon proving unbearable to the defenders and Reva ordered a withdrawal to the next ring. It was more costly this time, the Volarians quicker to take advantage of the confusion, swarming over the wall whilst their own archers engaged the men on the rooftops, many falling into the struggling mass of bodies choking the streets below. Pockets of defenders were cut off, holding out in fortified houses and exacting a fearful toll on those sent to root them out.

Reva watched from a rooftop as Varitai tried repeatedly to storm a chapel a few streets away, squads attempting to scale the walls or force their way through the windows, their bodies soon flung out again. Eventually they surrounded the building and assailed it with a hundred or more oil pots before an officer threw a torch. The flames took hold quickly and the defenders came streaming from the chapel, not in panic but fury, throwing themselves at the Varitai with no trace of fear. Reva straightened in surprise at the sight of the man leading the defenders, portly and dressed in a priest’s robes, hacking at the Volarians with a thin-bladed sword. The priest from the square. He died of course, along with the others, hacked down and butchered in the street, but not before they had felled at least twice their number.

Reva was turning away when something impacted on the roof-tiles with a wet smack. It rolled along the roof to rest at her feet, slack leathery features and empty eyes staring up at her. She looked around as more impacts sounded, the heads raining down around her. She heard a woman screaming in the street below, perhaps in recognition of one of the disembodied missiles.

She went to the manor where Arentes and Antesh were conferring over a map. “Do we have any prisoners?”

? ? ?

There were a little over two dozen men herded into a corner of the manor grounds under close guard, most wounded and all mute with the expectation of death. They were all Free Swords—Kuritai and Varitai didn’t surrender and none of the defenders felt inclined to care for any too wounded to keep fighting. “All officers or sergeants,” Antesh explained. “Thought they might have something to tell us.”

“We’re in here, they’re out there,” Reva replied. “That’s all we need to know.” She turned to the House Guard sergeant in charge of the prisoners. “Any problem with this? If so, I’ll see to it myself.”

The sergeant gave a stern shake of the head and hefted his pole-axe. “Spread them around a bit,” Reva told him. “Throw them over where the Free Swords are thickest.”

She forced herself to stay and watch, finding it curious that so few of them begged or tried to run. They had to know there was no refuge for them here, that surrender had only delayed the inevitable. Most were too cowed and fearful to do any more than stumble weeping to the block, eyes closed or vomiting in terror as the axe fell, but one man was straight-backed and defiant, staring at Reva with hard eyes as he was forced to his knees. “Elverah,” he said.

Reva gave a slight nod in response.

“No better,” he said in thickly accented Realm Tongue. “No better than us.”

“No,” she replied. “I’m much worse.”

? ? ?

Somehow she had managed to sleep, waking on a rooftop near the square with Arken sitting on the edge. He had found a blanket to cover her though the chilled night air still left her shivering. “Might have bought us some respite,” he said. “The thing with the prisoners. There hasn’t been an attack for nigh on two hours.” There was no reproach or judgement in his voice, just tired acceptance.

“They’ll be back,” she replied, standing and working the stiffness from her limbs. “Lord Arentes had good things to say about the help you gave the Realm Guard yesterday. Seems they want to adopt you.”

“Not a decent archer amongst them,” he said with a shrug. “Easy to stand out.”

She pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders, surveying the half-ruined city before her, the fires burning in the streets taken by the Volarians, watching them scurry from doorway to doorway having learned not to linger in sight of the defenders’ archers. Below her, people huddled together in the cramped streets behind the third ring, sitting around cook fires or just slumped in exhaustion. There was little talk, just the occasional infant’s cry or a sergeant’s shouted rebuke to a weary guard.

“I lied, Arken,” she said.

“What about?”

“Al Sorna. There was no vision, no gift of the Father’s Sight. For all I know he’s still in the Reaches. Perhaps he never had any intention of coming to our aid. Why would he? This land is filled with those who curse his name.”

She heard him rise and soon felt his arms close around her, strong and warm. “Is that what you think?”

I came back to this land to find a sister, instead I found two. “No,” she breathed, stifling a groan at the sight of a column of Varitai mustering in the streets opposite the south-facing wall. “No. He’s coming.”

? ? ?

It began again in the small hours of the morning and continued all day, the Volarians attacking in strength at four separate points, each fresh assault preceded by a rain of engine-launched gifts. Not just captive defenders now, women and youths amongst the severed heads smacking into the cobbles as they steeled themselves for the next rush. Inevitably some broke at the sight, a townsman running from his company and vaulting over the wall when a girl’s head landed amidst their ranks, screaming with a meat cleaver in hand as he charged the Free Swords approaching the wall, soon disappearing under a mass of stabbing short swords.

Reva rushed to wherever the need was greatest, killing with bow or sword to restore the position. Sometimes just the sight of her was enough, people gathering courage and rejoining the fight as she appeared on the rooftops or leapt into their midst. But as the noon sun rose she knew the time had come and ordered the three blasts sounded.

She was running with Arken across a walkway towards the fourth ring when she saw Lord Arentes in the street below, fighting together with a small band of surrounded guardsmen, Varitai assailing them on all sides. “Steady now!” the old commander intoned as they slowly inched their way towards the safety of the third ring. “One step back.”

Reva unslung her bow and took down three Varitai in quick succession, but it wasn’t enough. A tight formation of Free Swords came charging in, crashing into the guardsman and shattering their ranks. She saw Arentes parry a sword thrust and deliver an overhand slash to his opponent, cutting him down but leaving his sword embedded in his shoulder. Reva re-slung the bow and leapt from the walkway, landing in the swirling battle with sword drawn, cutting down a Volarian lunging at Arentes. Another came for her but was crushed under Arken’s boots as he dropped from the walkway, hacking wildly with his axe.

“The wall my lord!” she told Arentes and they ran, scrambling over with the help of many defenders as the archers above drove the Volarians back.

She looked up to see Arken cresting the wall, a large silhouette against a clear blue sky, tumbling to a heap on the street before her. “Arken?”

His face was pressed into the cobbles, the flesh bunched, eyes dim and unseeing. A Volarian short sword protruded from his back.

? ? ?

The third ring held for no more than an hour, despite the killing she did around Arken’s corpse as the Free Swords came over the wall. All sense of time lost in the fury of it, no weariness could touch her. They came and she killed them until hands grabbed her and dragged her away. Her senses returned then, a red slick covering her sword arm from blade to shoulder, eyes fixed on Arken’s body lying amidst the Volarian dead, lost to sight as they rounded a corner and she was borne over the fifth ring.

“My lady?” Antesh stared into her face, hand rough on her shoulder. “Please, my lady.”

She blinked at him and got slowly to her feet. “How many left?”

“Half at most. We lost too many when the last ring fell.”