Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [201]
The six open gates below her jetted water into the valley with incredible force. The water blasted into the thousands of highlanders crossing into the Great Market. Men clambered for higher ground, stampeding toward shore, crushing their fellows underfoot.
Only Garuwashi’s men were unfazed by the flood. Whether or not they had seen how near their trap had come to collapsing, the sa’ceurai were ready for it to work. Through all the high ground surrounding the Great Market, they closed ranks and shut down choke points expertly. Then they surged back, pushing Khalidorans to a watery death. In places, men clawed their way over the sa’ceurai’s shields, but they were quickly cut down.
Vi became aware that everyone on the bridge was staring at her. They were all shouting, cheering. She was still holding the chains. They were suddenly unbearably heavy. She dropped them and staggered. Hands grabbed her, steadied her. A dozen Sisters had ventured out onto the slick walkway to come to her.
Sisters. My sisters. Vi started crying, and no one looked at her like she was stupid.
87
Lantano Garuwashi was the first to understand the implications of what occurred at the dam. The trap he and Agon and Logan had worked up had always assumed that they would be able to close the sluice gates after they opened them. With the destruction of the pulleys, it was a miracle they’d been opened in the first place. After flooding out the highlanders, he and Logan had planned to throw everything at the shaken Khalidoran army. Caught between the Ceurans and the Cenarians and the cursed ground of the Dead Demesne, the Khalidoran army would have broken in minutes. Instead, the allies’ armies could only advance across the narrow bridges.
Garuwashi ordered the crossing and ordered magae to protect the bridges. If he’d been the Khalidorans, that’s what he would try to destroy.
He was right. The counterattack was almost solely magical. Hundreds of meisters had hit each of the bridges, but then, suddenly, they’d been called off. The magae told him they could see a magical conflagration on the far side of Black Barrow itself, Khalidorans fighting barbarians, but they couldn’t tell him anything else. Had he been able to ford the river, he could have taken advantage of the Godking’s splitting his army. But that was water literally under the bridge. He established beachheads and put engineers to work widening the bridges by whatever means they could, but the situation looked grim.
As soon as the Khalidorans saw that his men were establishing fortifications and not attacking, they withdrew to high points hundreds of paces away and began working on their own.
In the early afternoon, Garuwashi found King Gyre in their command tent, which had been moved to the foot of Oxbridge.
“Today was a great victory,” Logan said. “They lost more than nine thousand highlanders. I lost ninety men holding the market. How many sa’ceurai?”
“One hundred fifteen in baiting the trap. Eight in springing it.”
“Two hundred men, to kill nine thousand,” Logan said. He didn’t elaborate. It was a victory, but it was a victory that was a prelude to defeat.
“Tomorrow their fifteen thousand come back from Reigukhas, and you lose my sa’ceurai,” Garuwashi said.
“How long until the Regent arrives?” Logan asked.
“An hour. His messengers have asked that he see me immediately.” It wasn’t right. After such a great victory, he should be looking on the morrow with relish. Instead, this night he would kill himself. Many of his sa’ceurai would join him. The twenty thousand sa’ceurai who accompanied the Regent would simply turn and go home.
“Can’t you just use the illusion you used today?” Logan asked.
Garuwashi sighed. “Feir said there’s something about the magic of the blade that interferes with illusions. The glow looked good from ten or twenty paces while the sword was cutting back and forth, but from up close? It wouldn’t withstand a child’s scrutiny.”
“Your Majesties, if I may?” Feir asked. Garuwashi hadn’t seen him arrive,