Beyond the Bulwarks Page 40

  Motion blurred behind Maricius. Claws flashed at his armored shoulders as he fumbled for his weapon. His feet left the flagstones as a harpy began to lift him free.

  Anzo gripped the Legate’s leg with one hand and thrust upwards into the harpy’s exposed belly with the other. Maricius dropped with a gasp of air blasted from lungs and the creature thrashed away, showering Anzo in caustic, black gore. Unable to get air with the huge wound in its side, the harpy careened off the stone of the northeast wall and hit the flagstones. Anzo was there before it could recover, hacking as he bellowed in hate and disgust.

  Varya’s scream carried clearly over the din. Looking up from the slain monster, Anzo saw the battlements of the northeast tower writhing in purple bolts of energy. Harpies clustered about it, screeching, wheeling. Varya’s lightning met them, throwing some back in splashes of flame and clouds of scorched feathers. Others lunged through the storm. The signaler’s lantern snapped off the top of its staff and fell.

  Anzo whirled to Maricius, propped up by Sparto and struggling for breath. The Legate saw the look on his face and nodded. “Go to her. We’ve...gods...we’ve got the rest.”

  Anzo barely heard him, was already streaking for the entrance to the tower. Inside, the battle sounds were muffled and the air dry. Ignoring alarmed cries of men as he shouldered by, he took the stairs to the top four at a time. A legionnaire lay crumpled below the final ladder to the trapdoor to the top, covered in blood and moaning softly. Anzo stepped over him and flew up the rungs.

  The trapdoor resisted as he slammed it with his shoulder. He could hear Varya, could hear keening and men’s screams, could feel the prickling-skin sensation of Varya’s magic. He gave the door a huge shove, all his strength behind it, and it gave way, flopped aside as the body over it tumbled.

  Varya stared at him as he emerged. A finger alight with sorcery pointed at his face. He saw the panic in her eyes, saw her lips move in a shout. Hair standing up across his scalp, he knew they’d both be dead in an instant if he didn’t react. He ducked.

  Lightning crashed, the thunderclap jarring every nerve, every bone in Anzo’s body. Stink of ozone, charred meat seared his nose and throat as heat washed across him. The ladder gave way with a squall of skidding wood, left Anzo dangled by one hand from the trapdoor opening. Feathers and smoke drifted down. With the tendons of his arm quivering, Anzo pulled himself up, got his sword arm over the top, and heaved.

  The tower top was purple fire and death. Men and harpies lay in tangles. Varya occupied the center alone, weaving a tapestry of destruction around her. She’d drawn a complex pattern in a circle around her feet on the flagstones that pulsed with eldritch light in time to each strike of her magic. A harpy mounted the battlements and flung itself at her when she turned to deal with another threat. The patterns pulsed and a faint nimbus flickered into sight that solidified as the beast reached for her, jolting it back with a flash onto the floor.

  Anzo swept over the thing before it could regain its taloned feet. It found his scimitar in its chest halfway up the blade, a shriek cut off in its cleaved lungs. Anzo tore the steel free. The motion staggered him backwards towards Varya. He felt a jolt, saw a flash, and slammed forward onto the slain beast, dazed by the contact with Varya’s magical wards.

  Shadow materialized above Anzo. He fumbled to get his shocked limbs under control and untangle himself from the dead creature. Harpy claws fastened about his throat. Gagging for breath, he felt himself being lifted. Desperately, he fumbled to find his sword but his strength hadn’t returned. The harpy leaned over him, fangs opening for a bite.

  A quill-thin bolt of lightning slapped the harpy’s head back, scooped a flap of skull away in a jet of steam and cooked brains. Dead claws released and Anzo hit the flagstones again. Pain flooded his bruised backside, vaguely welcome over the numbness that had stolen his motor control. He rolled to one side, found his weapon and scooped it up as he tried to stand.

  “Are you all right?” Varya turned round and round slowly. Though her magic snarled and snapped about her, the skies were suddenly clear. “Anzo?”

  He nodded, still working to get stunned muscles working. “I’m alive.” The words slurred, his tongue fighting him and his palate scorchingly dry.

  “They’re falling back.” She nodded into the distance. Sinister winged silhouettes merged once again into the carrion clouds, receded into dots over the rolling line of the Bulwarks. She nodded to the fallen Legionnaires. “Check them.”

  There had been three. Two were obviously dead, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, blood all over them. The third, the signaler, had been gashed badly about the neck and arms, but he was moving and the bleeding not too bad. Anzo knelt beside him, began tearing bandages from his gore-spattered tunic and applying pressure.

  “I tried to help them.” Varya’s voice began to shake. The purple fires about her died.

  “I know you did.” Anzo pressed a bandage to the wounded signaler’s neck. He was going to need more than Anzo’s meager skills soon and he leaned over the trapdoor opening. “Get us some help up here!”

  “I tried...” Varya wiped at her eyes. The glow from the circle patterns at her feet faded. “I had to fight, Anzo, or we’d all die.”

  “I know. It’s all right.” He began to chuckle.

  She frowned at him, eyes bleary. “What’s so funny?”

  His chuckles became full-blown laughter, ridiculous and without thought.

  “Here I thought I was coming to save you!”

  ***

  Lanterns lit the dark of the officer’s mess. The thick walls of the block house muffled most sound, but not all. The sounds of isolated fights, flaring up still, even with night fallen, carried faintly through. The clamor of a resurgent scrap at the south gate of Estpont lilted into the chamber every time an aide or runner passed through the door, disembodied, like the cries of angered spirits trying to force their way back into the world of the living.

  Maricius sat at a table, eyeing maps while his commanders hunched around him. The gashes of harpy claws showed as glimmering tracks on the shoulders of his breastplate. At least a third of the officers wore bandages and everyone’s armor displayed dents and stains. Plates of cold food and bottles from the Legate’s personal stores had been brought in. The bottles were nearly empty now, but the food largely untouched.

  Anzo and Enu sat side by side on a bench off to one side, the Kharzulan sipping slowly at a mug of wine. Varya leaned against Anzo’s left, had been fluttering in and out of sleep before, but seemed to be fully attentive now.

  “They’ve got a toehold south of Estpont, on the river bank below the ridge,” Maricius’ aide, Sartorus, was saying as he pointed to the map. “They keep hitting the gate and now we can hear them creeping back into the harbor. They’ll be at the barricades again by dawn.”

  “It’s the same all along the river,” another officer, heavily-bandaged, spoke up. “They hold the riverbank in force, even if they can’t move up from it. And we hear them moving fresh men back and forth and from across the river in the dark.”

  “Getting in close—the animals can learn. They’ve figured out how to avoid our artillery.” Maricius nodded. “It’ll cost them. They’ll be wet and hungry and tired. They can’t light fires down there and even if they could, they’d draw our archery.” He pointed at a man Anzo had seen directing fire on the walls. “Keep the bowmen at it all night with fire arrows, harassing them. Deny them sleep.” He looked around the room. “And make sure those who can amongst your commands do sleep. I need their eyes and minds clear.”

  “Can we spare some wagons for my wounded,” asked the bandaged officer, “while the night gives them cover?”

  Maricius looked to a man standing slightly apart from the Legionnaires, a massively-built, bald-headed brute in civilian leathers. “See to it. Unload weapons if you have to.” The civilian nodded and hastened to see to the task. Maricius turned his gray stare back on the officer. “How is it with the Fourth and Sixth Co
horts?”

  “Spirits are good. It was a hard time in that damned draw, for a while.” He turned to face Enu and offered the upraised palm of salute. “Many thanks to the Secundus.” Growls of appreciation gave the grim gathering momentary cheer and Enu smiled. But the infantry officer’s expression darkened quickly. “We’ve a hundred dead and twice that wounded between the cohorts.”

  “And the Estpont detachments?” Maricius turned again to Sartorus.

  “Optio Herzok reports light casualties amongst his regulars,” the aide replied, “but heavier with the Auxiliaries. They did well, though.”

  “Distribute extra wine rations to the Auxiliaries. Let them know.” Marcius’ face became grim. “Tomorrow is going to be harder.”

  “There’s more,” said Sparto, nursing a wound to his neck that looked to have been a harpy’s work. “We’ve got the signal lanterns going again. Way Fort Five reports that they’ve lost contact with the Watch Towers north of them.”

  The Legate gnawed at a fingernail. “That means Way Fort Six is out of contact and the bastards may be between them now.” His gaze rose to Enu. “We didn’t commit everything today. Detach the third cohort of the Secundus and send them to reestablish communications.”

  Enu got to his feet, stiff with saddle soreness, and set aside his mug. “And if they run into something?”

  A hush passed through the room. “Deploy and delay,” Maricius spoke into it. “Make sure word is sent back, if that’s the case. Also, no matter what happens tomorrow, keep the fourth cohort in reserve in case they’re needed for a fast dash north to reinforce the third.” Seeing the pained expression on Enu’s face, the Legate hastened to add, “I know it’s halving your force again, but there’s no help for it.”

  Enu offered a crisp nod.

  “What about those things?” The questioner was the doubting young commander from Way Fort Four, Antonus, ridden in from his post for the meeting, apparently. “They were all over us and hit the Watch Towers, too.”

  With a wince, Varya rose. Anzo kept his hand comfortingly on her arm as she spoke. “Those things, harpies, are Arshann’s doing. Expect to see them again and...other things. But know that they can be killed, just like a man.”

  “You can’t—” Antonus swallowed. “Can’t you do something?”

  “She has been doing something.” Anzo began to rise, angry with memories of the midday butchery. Varya patted his hand to calm down.

  “I can fight,” she replied. “Just like any of you.”

  “And that’s just what we’re going to do.” Maricius slapped the tabletop. “We’re holding them. And we’re killing them.” He scanned the faces of the men. “We’ll hold them again tomorrow, and every day after that. Now, if there’s anything else?” Silence answered him. “Excellent. Good evening to you, lads.”

  The meeting broke up. Maricius waved Anzo, Varya, and Enu over and waited to speak until after the room was cleared. “My Lady Varya, have you any communication from your peers in Aurid?”

  “No. It’s the same as before. All is clouded by Him.” She frowned, glancing at Anzo. “Why, Legate?”

  He gnawed at a thumbnail. “We’re getting confused signals from Way Fort Three, relayed all the way up from the south, from the direction of Hadron. There may be a large body moving up.”

  “They can’t have spread that far.” Enu glanced back and forth between Anzo and the Legate. “We haven’t seen everything, I’ll grant, but there’s been at least thirty thousand in front of us.”

  Maricius shrugged. “They may have been enough to cut us off as far as the Sixth Way Fort. I don’t know.” A hint of smile crept into his stony face. “It could be someone else.”

  “Reinforcements.” Anzo grinned.

  “Maybe.” Maricius touched Enu’s arm. “Quietly select a few of your outriders, your fastest, and send them south to find out what’s happening.”

  “Immediately!” Enu whirled to leave.

  “A little hope then.” Anzo pulled Varya close.

  “I’m too old to just trust in the gods, alone.” Maricius rotated a kink from his bruised neck. “Hope needs confirmation. Even if it is the Hadron garrison, or something more, they’re days away.” He sighed and Anzo was reminded suddenly of Magentius Perrenius, aged beyond his years.

  “And, Pyradien help me, we’ve got work here until then.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Breaking Point

  The battles for the Legion road north of Terminus and Estpont, south of it, were at full fury before dawn. With the Vhurrs returned the harpies, their hellish keen chilling the nerves of men and drowning out the wails of the dying. Varya’s sorcery ravaged from the northeast tower, false, purple sunrises dashing the creatures from the sky, scattering them. They didn’t relent, flinging themselves wastefully into the gauntlet. But the cleverness of it became quickly clear: her efforts could not now aid the defenders struggling below.

  The stubborn slugging-match for the Legion road dragged on. The Secundus came into play repeatedly, plugging breakthroughs with savage thrusts. Anzo saw Enu knocked from his horse at one point, but the Kharzulan fended off attackers until comrades cleared them away and the ebony-skinned commander leapt back into the saddle, now helmetless.

  The fight for Estpont acquired notable savagery. Maricius abandoned his usual spot on the river wall and Anzo followed him to the south battlements. A pack of Vhurrs had broken through on the Lydirian-facing palisades of the town and neither the Auxiliaries nor the Legionnaires could drive them off. Vhurrs howled through the murk of the abandoned harbor and slammed against the barricades there, overturned wagons jostling as men battled atop them. Smoke and flame rose from the south gate, where the barbarians had gotten a pile of garbage lit. A sluggish southwesterly breeze carried the oily fumes over Terminus, smelling of boiling fat. Corpses must have been amongst the fuel.

  Firelight glimmered in the hard cracks of Maricius’ face. Sparto clapped him on the shoulder, turned him to the signal lantern blinking from the northeast tower. The Legate cursed softly. “Way Fort Five reports hostile cavalry on the plains behind them. The animals have broken through.” He clenched his aide’s arm. “Pass along to the signaler the order to release the Fourth of the Secundus north.” Sparto departed and Maricius looked up to the southwest tower signaler. “Still holding all along the south. It’s like they’re not trying there, anymore.”

  “It makes sense.” Anzo nodded. “They’ve got the north partially open. If they concentrate on Terminus, break us here, the south will fold up anyway.”

  Maricius grunted, his eyes flickering in time to the northwest signals. Despite efforts to force it back, hope flared in Anzo’s chest. “Any more word of—”

  “Nothing.” Maricius’ gaze dropped to the fighting about Estpont again. “The Vhurrs are creeping below our walls, between Terminus and the town.”

  Anzo followed the Legate’s stare. Motion flurried amongst the wreckage of the suburbs crammed in the rocky defile below the fort. Archery from the battlements above and the town wall below savaged any that showed themselves, but the cover kept Vhurr losses low. More were crowding behind them by the riverbank, infiltrating carefully, slowly.

  Cries of alarmed carried from the south walls of the town, followed by a low boom. A blossom of fire rose from the south gate, timbers catching, defenders flowing back from the gatehouse to palisades on either side. The brilliance intensified, heat tightening the skin on Anzo’s face as he watched.

  “Shit, we’re losing Estpont.” Maricius turned and waved for a runner. “We need to get those men out before they’re cut off.”

  Anzo grabbed the Legate. “I’ll go. I’m the only one not accomplishing anything.”

  Maricius eyed him for an instant. “Right. We’ll be signaling from here, but it needs to be clear—no mistakes. Sartorus is down there. Find him, if you can. If not, locate Optio Herzok and tell him to pull everyone out. We will cover their retreat. Tell him to redeploy on the road above the
town, beside Terminus. I’ll have Enu swing around to screen them and then cover their right flank once they’ve recovered. Go now.” Anzo started away. “And, Severnus? If you get yourself killed, I’m going to be very annoyed.”

  “We wouldn’t want that!” Anzo grinned over his shoulder.

  Racing down from the wall and across the courtyard to the main gate on the west wall of the fort seemed to take no time, Anzo’s muscles alight with anticipation that overrides fear. He found a scarred-faced noncom in command there and told him his orders.

  “There’s a small postern gate on the north Estpont wall,” the man told Anzo. He waved to men at the battlements above him. “Wait a few moments. They’re signaling them that you’re coming. You’ll have archery cover from our wall but move quickly. There are Vhurrs all over the place.” He pointed to the Legionnaires and civilian crew at the gate. They rushed to draw back locking bolts and edged the mighty oaken double doors open a crack.

  Anzo breathed slowly for control. The electric quiver of his nerves became a numbing, prickling chill while his heart hammered against his ribcage, pulse shuddering up into his ears. Come on. Fear began its chilly assault on his guts, withering them into a pudding that seemed to weight him even more than weapon and armor. Come on!

  The noncom waved in response to his men above. “That’s it! Go!”

  Anzo lurched out the gate and rounded the southwestern tower of Terminus, nearly slipped in muck leftover from the rains. His legs seemed separate from him, pounding, jarring the rest of his body as he sprinted into the open ground between the fort and town. He could see the postern gate by the men on the palisades waving him frantically onward.

  It seemed an impossibly long distance.