The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [165]
The Tersept of Sart turned his head sharply to stare at a warrior who was gingerly stepping forward into the hole. Long moments later, the man reappeared, and beckoned his fellows-whereupon someone let go with a sling and felled the warrior, and swords flashed out all over the hillside.
"Defend yourselves," the Smiling Wolf roared to his men, "but stand together! No fighting off in this direction or that-stand as one!"
The Tersept of Gilth gave him a cool look. "I did not hear you confer with me before uttering that order," he said thinly.
"No, and you're not going to, either!" Glarsimber Belklarravus snarled, thrusting his face close to that of his ally. "This is war, and I'm not dying or seeing my men cut up around me because of anyone's pride, see? When it's time to talk and deal, I'll defer to you. Out here, with swords and men dying and such unpleasantness, you defer to me."
Battle had erupted in earnest around the breach in the wall. The Wolf of Sart watched warriors hack and struggle for a few moments more, and then stood up in his stirrups and shouted, "To yonder way! Charge!"
The Tersept of Gilth was still sputtering in indignation and fear when the hired armaragors rose up around him and swept up the hill, galloping with enthusiasm and swinging their long blades at anything that got in the way.
They struck the knots of struggling warriors like a giant's fist, hurling men aside and trampling those who couldn't or wouldn't give way swiftly enough. In the space of a few swift breaths the two tersepts were swinging down from their saddles, as abandoned mounts reared and ran in confusion all around them, and horses briefly commanded the breach in the wall of the Silent House. And then they were inside, in sudden gloom, slipping in blood and stepping over sprawled bodies, their blades ready.
Ahead, there was shouting, and men running with swords, and confused hackings and stabbings. Men sobbed as they crashed into walls, metal armor shrieking, and grunted or screamed as they took wounds-or died.
Sart slipped in sticky blood, chopped with brisk efficiency at a snarling warrior who appeared out of nowhere to sword him, and then burst out into a wider way-a passage crowded with the dead and dying, where a few of their hired armaragors were wading uncertainly towards a door.
"Here?" the Wolf of Sart snapped.
"Whence they came, Lord," one of the hireswords replied calmly, "and where they fled back again through."
Sart nodded and waved one heavy-gauntleted hand. "Lead on then!" He looked back once, more to make sure Gilth wasn't gathering himself to sink a sword into the back of a certain Wolf than for any other reason, and then plunged through the door into a cross-passage, over more bodies, and into another passage strewn with more battle dead and the splintered remnants of a litter. There was an open doorway across that passage, and the shout and clang of battle was coming out of it.
Glarsimber Belklarravus looked at his hireswords and waved his hand imperiously at the doorway. Faces impassive, the armaragors looked back, and stayed where they were.
The Wolf shook his head in disgust and strode through the door, not bothering to look back and see if anyone followed.
He was looking into a huge, high-vaulted chamber, choked with rubble and sprawled bodies. A pillar had cracked and fallen-recently, by the looks of things-and stairs had broken away from balconies here and there, some of which still sprouted a crop of watching men.
They were looking at a battle going on at the heart of the chamber-where an old man was grimly holding a Dwaer in his shaking hands, flanked by a hulking armaragor and a slim, snake-swift procurer, and using its mage-fires to hold back armaragors of several baronies, while other Dwaer-Stones