Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [167]
“Gavry, get down!” Jill shouted. “You’ll only be in the way.”
The elderly lord was more than glad to follow her order, scrabbling down a ladder to hurry back to the dun. Jill found a spot where she could wedge herself next to a tower and out of everyone’s way, then brought her sight back to the etheric. The pillars of black light were moving closer.
“Siege towers,” she yelled. “Hidden by dweomer, but they have them.”
She heard Mallo yelling orders about fire, and in a few moments she could smell wood smoke and the sickening odor of melting pitch. For a moment she debated trying a banishing against those towers of blackness, but if she could simply guide the archers? Better yet! Let their enemies wonder how their dweomer defense had been pierced! She switched her sight down and noted the lay of the land, then returned it up to mark the towers of black light. From auras and the traces of talismatic magic she could easily keep track of the various squads of men.
“Directly behind the five mounted lords,” she called out. “Sight over those ranked foot soldiers in front, sight some five feet behind the horses, now lift your aim to about ten feet above the ground.”
With a whoosh and a stink of smoke the first course of flaming arrows flew. Jill could hear the Horsekin screaming in rage, but she kept her sight focused on the etheric plane—the higher ground in this peculiar battle.
“Just a little to the left!” she screamed.
The second flight whistled out. One of the black shafts of light exploded and vanished in a rush of pure elemental energy, the red and gold of natural fire. As the rest of the arrows fell into the army, shrieks of pain howled up with the battle cries. Taken off-guard the enemy squads were milling round, trying to form into some kind of order for a charge.
“A strike! A strike!” the guards cried.
“There’s two more,” Jill called. “Swing to your right. Over the men holding that—ye gods, they’ve got a ram! Behind the ram, then, and just five feet behind and the same height as your last volley.”
This time the first flight struck home, and another black shaft vanished into fire. Down below the enemy charged; from the walls a single flurry of stones greeted them. This early in the siege the defenders would have to trust in their walls and gates rather than depleting their supply of weapons. Jill sighted on the third siege tower, called down the flaming arrows again, and again, they struck home, setting the engine alight. Cengarn’s walls rang with jeers and catcalls as the soldiers carrying the ram tried one feeble bounce, then retreated fast under a covering fire of arrows that stilled the defenders’ laughter. Jill dropped below a merlon just in time, and a curse next to her told her that one of the guards had lingered too long.
She brought her physical sight back fast, and kneeling, she crawled over to him, but he was already dead, pierced through the neck by sheer luck and little else. All Jill could do for him was close his eyes. Mallo came crawling to join her and swore when he saw the corpse.
“We’ve driven the bastards off,” he said to the dead man. “You didn’t die in vain, lad.” He glanced at Jill. “He’s our first, is he? I’m not fool enough to think hell be our last.”
Nodding agreement Jill rose, risking a look through two merlons. The enemy had withdrawn, leaving their siege towers burning like huge torches in the neutral ground while they dragged their dead and wounded away. Black smoke rose to defile the sky.
“Well and good,” Jill said. “We got a claw into them, did we? And now they’ll have to think for a while before they risk feeling the whole paw.”
At the same time as the Horsekin were mounting their abortive attack, up in his own country Evandar was listening to the harpers sing a pair