Chapter Twenty-one Aemon’s Stand #3
Rogues and Rangers fighting against the Daemons?
The Prince supposed there was a chance, particularly if any of them had valerium weapons like Davydd and Lorna.
But five Earth Daemons at once? The Prince shook his head.
No, they’d never be able to get close enough without one of the other Daemons smashing them to a pulp.
The Rogues were good, but what they were fighting against were supernatural beings, the power of the earth itself given form and malicious intent.
But what else could they do?
The Prince heard a familiar voice and stopped, looking down a back alleyway between two large houses. It was Davydd, and he was talking to a gathered group of Rangers and Rogues. The Prince approached quickly.
“How long do we have?” a man with a mane of white hair asked, blood on his face and an eye-patch covering his right eye. He had the black-and-silver armor of a Rogue and the dagger insignia of an eshendai.
“Not long enough,” a tall woman, a gold-and-black Ranger, responded grimly. “We can’t take another attack like that.”
“It’s those shadow-cursed Daemons!” Davydd said. “Nothing even slows them down. Nothing!”
“We need to kill the Bloodmages riding them,” the white-haired man said.
“They won’t die,” said a woman with a bow slung across her back. “We’ve pin cushioned them and still they ride those beasts.”
“You could try drowning them,” the Prince said.
Davydd and the rest of the group turned as the Prince came out of the alleyway.
“Look who’s joined the fight,” Davydd said, eyeing the Prince in his armor.
“Who’s this?” the eye-patch man asked. “Major…?”
“No, it’s borrowed armor,” Davydd said.
“Drown them?” prompted Lorna, who was leaning against a building, hidden in a patch of shadow.
“Yes,” the Prince said, stepping forward into the circle so they all could hear him. “They’re Earth Daemons, summoned with the essence of earth, which is primarily rock. You need to counter that essence.”
“Wouldn’t air be the counter of earth?” the white-haired man asked.
“Yes,” the Prince said quickly, “but if you drop them off the cliff south of us, they’ll get carried away by the current.
The drop will take away their connection to the earth and weaken them, and then the water will carry them away.
If you’re lucky, it might even break them up.
Worst case scenario is that they get washed down river and have to make their way back—but they’re slow.
They’ll be out of the fight for a couple hours. ”
The Rogues and Rangers glanced at Davydd, who looked to be doing some very quick thinking.
“You’re sure of this?”
The Prince nodded.
“I must be shadow-blinded insane to take advice from the Prince of Ravens,” he muttered so that only the Prince could hear before turning back to the group.
“Do it,” he said shortly. “We don’t have much time until they assault the walls—be ready to draw them off.
Pass the word—all Spellblades, particularly Rangers, are to draw the Daemons to the edge of the cliff.
Rogues will be used as a harrying force to drive them.
Those with valerium weapons take point. Have five teams ready, one for each of them, ready to push them over the edge. ”
“With what?”
“The longest spears you can find,” Davydd answered. “Break off the metal tips and use them to push them over. Are these things easy to unbalance?”
This last question was addressed to the Prince.
“No,” the Prince responded, “but if they’re up high enough, close to that cliff, it will be easier. In any case, aim for the chest to get leverage. It’s your best shot—you’ll at least be able to slow them down.”
“Right, all of you pass the word to the others.”
They began to move off, but the Prince stopped Davydd.
“The Bloodmages,” he said quickly, “the ones riding the Daemons. You need to take them off the Daemons to kill them—they’re connected to the essence of the earth that helped make the creatures.
Arrows will never penetrate their skin. But knock them off the Daemons, and they’re just ordinary men again.
The Daemons will run amok with no one controlling them, but they won’t be much use in any tactical sense after that.
To knock them off and kill them, break or somehow take the medallions they have slung around their necks—it’s the source of their power, and it will be what’s connecting them to the Daemons. ”
Davydd watched him for a long moment, and the Prince knew he was being reevaluated. Finally, the red-eyed young man nodded and turned to go, then stopped and turned back.
“Leah and Tomaz are at the second gate, go join them if you can.”
The Prince retraced his steps and made his way back onto the boulevard.
Two turns later, he was facing an enormous gate connected to a high wall branching off to either side of him, following the natural curves of the mountain with tall guard towers every fifty yards or so.
Kindred archers in dark greens and browns covered every spare inch of the wall, raining arrows down on anything that moved in the lower levels of the city.
Similarly dressed light infantry men stood with them, some with small but colorful stripes on their breastplates to mark them out as officers in different regiments, ready to repel an attack should it come at them from over the wall.
The Prince searched frantically for Leah and Tomaz, and finally saw an enormous back over to his right pounding on something with a large hammer.
“Tomaz!”
The hammer paused and the big shape turned. The Prince ran for him, and as he came closer, he saw that the big man was working at a makeshift forge. Leah was nowhere in sight.
“I thought you were wounded!” Tomaz rumbled, the lines of exhaustion on his face breaking into his customary smile.
“Just a scratch,” the Prince responded, smiling as well. But then the moment passed, and they remembered that they were in the middle of a siege that could begin again at any moment.
“Are the blacksmiths too busy?” the Prince asked, motioning to the armor.
“Yes,” the big man responded with a sigh as a shadow of fatigue passed over his face.
“Most of the smithies are on the higher levels, thank the Light, but there is much more dire need of new arrowheads and spears. Some men aren’t even armed.
And since I did my share of blacksmithing before I joined the Rogues, I can take care of my own armor when I need to. ”
“Some men aren’t even armed?” the Prince asked. Tomaz nodded darkly.
“There were spies within the Kindred,” he responded. “A clan of Seekers.”
“No!” the Prince said, feeling his stomach drop out from under him with no warning. An entire clan of Seekers could do incalculable damage. “What about the Anchors?”
“The three we’ve caught had them,” Tomaz said.
“And we haven’t caught them all. From the interrogations, we know that there was a group of thirteen hidden in Vale, and another group of seven here.
We stumbled on one man setting up Black Powder in the granaries.
He won’t talk names, but we were able to get numbers.
We were too late to stop the others from destroying the main armory; a full third of our force was half-equipped when the siege began.
We caught three more when we tracked down their safehouse, but that still leaves at least another three running around creating trouble.
We’ve doubled the guard on the food and weapons, but who knows what else they’re planning. ”
The Prince didn’t know what to say. How had a clan of Seekers infiltrated the Kindred and he hadn’t known? It had to be a covert operation by Symanta—she was the only one who had constant contact with the Seekers. The Prince wondered if the Empress even knew about it.
“Where’s Leah?” the Prince asked.
“I sent her to eat,” Tomaz answered.
“Sent?”
“Yes, that fool of a girl hasn’t eaten in nearly two days, and she still insisted she didn’t need to. It’s the Spellblade in her—the strength she gets from the bonding to her daggers allows her to ignore natural needs.”
“When do you think they’ll attack again?” the Prince asked.
“I don’t know,” Tomaz said quietly, his tone solemn.
“Soon, though. They know we’re beaten, but not broken.
They’ll make sure the first tier of the Stand is clear and then they’ll assault the gate.
I’d say at an outside guess we have a little under an hour until they can bring the rams to bear, and then we’ll begin again.
You know your brother: once the scent of blood is in his nose, he won’t stop while there is anyone left standing. ”
“No. No he won’t.”
“Would you mind giving me a hand with this?” Tomaz asked, pointing to the large breastplate.
The Prince nodded. “What do you need?”
Tomaz asked him to hold it steady so that he could beat the metal with his hammer, and then to heat it over the banked coals of his makeshift fire.
The job was imperfect, but the metal slowly bent back into a semblance of the shape it was supposed to have.
The Prince, glad of the mind-numbing repetition of the job, relaxed into the rhythm, and for the next hour or so they mended most of Tomaz’s armor, which had taken a heavy beating.
All around them men were employed in various tasks of war: re-fletching arrows, sharpening swords, beating out dents in helms and breastplates like Tomaz.
Not a single one was sitting idly by, and the Prince felt a strange stirring of pride, knowing that the people with which he had thrown in his lot would not back down even in the face of an overwhelming force.
The ground began to shake beneath their feet.