The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [125]
“They look like dogs,” Merodda called back to the others. “A lot of dogs around a bit of dropped meat.”
The tower shook, suddenly and fiercely. The other women cried out; the shock hit again. The men outside howled, cheering someone or something on.
“That’s the ram,” Merodda said.
The blows hit again and again, not hard enough to knock her from her feet, but strong nonetheless. It seemed she could hear the broch groan in pain—until she realized that she was hearing the king’s men waiting in the great hall. With each impact they too shouted, as if begging the doors to hold. When she looked out, she saw from the floors below her a rain of stones and lit torches pounding down on the attackers, who fended them off with shields. Here and there a Cerrmor man staggered and went down.
All at once the shouting both outside and in changed to shrieks and howls of rage and bloodlust.
“The doors are down,” Merodda said. “May the Goddess help us all.”
She left the window and sat down by Abrwnna, who turned to her like a child. Merodda put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. A few at a time the other women joined them, huddling together in a rough semicircle with the pages in the middle. The baby began to cry, a high endless wail that nothing would stop. From below they could hear shouting, oddly muffled and booming through the thick stone walls. At first it stayed distant, but slowly it crept closer. Cerrmor men must have cleared the hall and started up the stairs.
It went on all morning, one room, one corridor at a time, or so they could assume. They could hear the sound of fighting out in the ward, too—the screaming, the clang of metal hitting metal, dull blows and thwacks and howls of pain. None of the women spoke; no one ate, either, though once a page fetched a waterskin, and they passed that round. Toward noon the baby cried himself hoarse and fell into an exhausted sleep. That was, Merodda supposed, a small blessing and the only one they’d get. Not long after she realized that the sounds from outside were growing, swelling like a wave of noise.
“More men, it sounds like,” she said. “The other brochs must be theirs.”
One of the pages started to weep. She got up and went back to the window. Sure enough, down below the Cerrmor army held the entire ward. She saw men with weapons sheathed casually going in and out of the other brochs in the complex.
“Everything’s theirs but this tower,” Merodda said.
No one even looked her way. She wondered if she should throw herself out the window and die on her own terms, but the thought turned her body to lead. She could not force herself toward that last refuge.
All at once something whipped past the window—a rope, a grapple. The shouting below turned triumphant as another rope followed, and another. No king’s men appeared at the windows below to cut the ropes.
“Oh ye gods,” Merodda said. “They’re coming for the roof.”
Abrwnna screamed, then stuffed the side of her hand into her mouth. Merodda sank down by the window and leaned against the wall. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. The baby woke and began to cry, a horrible hoarse bleat, while his mother wept and begged him to stop.
“It won’t be long now,” Merodda whispered. “That’s something, I suppose.”
No one seemed to have heard her. She was aware of shadows passing over her—armed men climbing past the window. All at once she heard footsteps and a crow of laughter from the wooden roof above. The other women began to weep; Abrwnna turned so pale that Merodda feared she would faint. Some scuffling, some loud talking, though she couldn’t make out the words—and then blows, the thwack of axes, biting into the wood.
“Get over here!” Merodda screamed. “Get out of the middle of the room!”
The women and boys leapt up and scurried over. They packed together, holding each other and sobbing, as axe after axe bit deep. Merodda found herself in front