Kellanved's Reach

Again the thin smile. ‘I see your game.’ He sighed. ‘Very well. You’ve made your point. How much do you want? How much to go away?’

At that question, Terath, at Orjin’s side, snarled and jerked forward as if about to jump the wall, a hand going to one of her swords.

‘You lot packed up and headed back south would do it,’ he answered.

Renquill shook his head in regret. ‘Foolish.’ He turned to the officer next to him. ‘Keep them in there until the only thing left to eat is each other.’ The officer bowed his acceptance. Renquill pulled his gloves back on, calling up, ‘I’d like to stay and have you put down like the dog that you are, but I can’t have you holding us up, now can I?’

The party turned and cantered away.

Orjin yelled after them: ‘Who’s the damned dog slinking off now, hey!’ But the commander merely waved negligently over his shoulder, apparently big enough to ignore Orjin’s proddings. He muttered to Terath, ‘Well, that didn’t work. I guess we’ll have to see what Jeral can cook up.’

‘If she’s still out there,’ she commented darkly.

‘She’s still sending messengers. They’re even sweeping together broken elements of the Purge army up there.’

As the hours passed, the Quon Talian main force continued its march northwards, filing by the fort. Orjin’s lieutenant, Arkady, made a circuit of the walls and reported back, ‘I make it some seven hundred surrounding us.’ He glowered, his long moustaches fairly bristling. ‘That’s a damned insult.’

Orjin raised a placating hand. ‘It’s all right. They don’t know who they’re dealing with – yet.’

All they could do now was wait. For him this was the hardest part of any engagement. Where he had control he was at ease; where he had no control he was unbearable. And so he stood the wall as the hours passed, thinking, reviewing his choices. What more could he have done? Every twelve hours he’d sent messengers northward to the Purge commanders, informing them of his preparations – and the enemy’s deployment. Now, he had only to wait. Would they respond and send a contending force? Or had they already pulled back to Purage, reconciled to a siege? For Orjin, these unknowns were more uncomfortable than a dose of the clap.

Though he burned to know what was going on high in the pass, he kept a northward post, watching the Quon Talian forces marching onward; it wouldn’t do for the Talians to wonder why everyone in the fort was eyeing the south with such anticipation.

Towards sundown word came from Terath that the baggage train was now descending the pass. He clenched the logs before him, rocking, forcing himself to remain. Now came the gamble. Would Jeral take this opportunity to hit the invader? That at least was his reading of her. She’d struck him as a fighter, not a runner.

After an agonizing wait in which he absolutely decided that she’d betrayed him, then flipped to grant her more time, then changed his mind again a dozen times over, gasps of awe – and a good deal of relief – sounded from his troops scanning the south. He turned, squinting into the purpling distance. Everyone was shouting now, and pointing high to the pass far above, even the surrounding Talian forces.

It all unfurled in breathtaking silence at first. Boiling clouds of snow descending not one but both slopes of the pass simultaneously, closing in on the ant-like file of the army baggage train like the twin arms of a vengeful god. Orjin was staggered by the scale of it; he’d expected a few falling rocks and logs, not this complete sweeping of the high slopes. It occurred to him that the witches and shamans of the hill-folk must have thrown their weight behind it.

Then the thunder of the avalanches hit his chest, momentarily drowning out the appalled cries of the surrounding Talians and the cheers of his troops. Terath appeared at his side, flushed and panting from running across the enclosure. ‘What now?’ she bellowed.

A massive storm of snow now utterly obscured the pass. The Quon Talian train – all the supplies, the support, the wagons with their teams of oxen, horses and donkeys gathered for the coming campaign – must have been obliterated. The catwalk of the log palisade juddered and shook beneath him; the very wall rocked as in an earthquake.

He peered round at the halted ranks of the invaders, the thousands upon thousands of backward-staring infantry, no doubt enraged by the attack, and nodded to his lieutenant.

‘This is a far greater blow than I’d hoped for. I’m thinking we’re about to be overrun. Time to head for the hills.’

She jerked a nod and ran to spread the order. Orjin waved his troops off the north wall and pointed to the east. They’d scale over and make a run to join Jeral.