Chapter Sixteen #2
The Athulua Garrison occupied a promontory wedge jutting outward from the coast. Any force attacking that post directly from the sea would have to scale a daunting face of natural cliffs surmounted by a wooden palisade.
Even though a few Drowned could be seen attempting the climb, it did not appear they posed a threat to the encampment.
On the other side of the fort, an earthen wall protected its landward front, surrounded by fields at the mouth of the shallow glen Lorath had seen on the map, and there the enemy had massed for an assault on the main gates.
A thin barrage of burning missiles and explosive shells rained down on the Drowned horde, causing some damage to their ranks.
However, the newly arrived Amazon warships had plowed directly into the Drowned-infested waters, surrounding the promontory with a defensive crescent of fire and steel.
Their efforts appeared to have pushed the enemy forces back, preventing additional Drowned from joining the force attacking the eastern wall.
Lorath hurried to help Keldon lower the sails, letting the Arabel drift a safe distance from the violence. It did not appear that Tavie’s cavalry had arrived yet.
“There’s another sight I’ve not beheld,” the sailor said. “You wanted a fight, lad, well, there it is. What’s the plan?”
Lorath considered their options for a line of attack. “We won’t be much help on the water,” he said. “We have no incendiary weapons, and the Amazon warships appear to have that front in hand.”
Keldon regarded the mob at the gates with skepticism. “I don’t mean to injure your pride, but I doubt the two of us can turn the tide of that land assault, either.”
“Not yet,” Lorath said. “First, we need to find Adreona.”
“In that mayhem? How? Why?”
“Her message said she and her company had holed up in a cave near a place called the Pommel.” Lorath scanned the surrounding terrain, and it did not take long to spot a large rounded feature of rock standing like a saddle pommel partway down a sloping ridge on the far side of the glen.
“There. That must be it, but we’ll have to make our way there on foot.
Put to shore here. Any nearer and I think the Drowned would be on us. ”
Keldon’s ship had a fairly shallow draft, which allowed them to drop anchor close enough to wade ashore.
From there, they skulked up the pebbly beach into a thicket of scrub oak and juniper.
A few farms long since fallen into ruin lay between them and the garrison, offering stone fences and overgrown shaws to hide behind while they skirted as far around the Drowned horde as they could manage.
Even at a distance, the ringing of unholy bells filled Lorath with a chilling dread, and the reek of rot and bilge wafted over him whenever he turned to survey the enemy’s strength.
There were hundreds of them. Hooded juggernauts and grotesque tidewalkers towered over simpering, vicious wretches, while the decayed corpses of former sailors brandished cutlasses and clubs.
Unlike the Drowned Lorath had heard of in other parts of Sanctuary, some of these wore pieces of armor and jewelry that appeared to be of Firstborn style and make.
They moved with unnatural lurches, rasping voices issuing from gaping mouths.
They could not be reasoned with. They could not be appeased.
They knew only mindless hatred and sought only to kill and destroy.
Anyone facing such horror could be forgiven for fleeing in terror at the first glimpse of it, yet Adreona and her Amazons had not run.
They remained valiant in tireless defense of their people.
Eventually, Lorath and Keldon reached the mouth of the glen.
The vestiges of a trackway from more ancient days could still be seen in a winding descent from the nearer northern ridgeline down to the field before the fort.
The current road followed the valley floor and led directly across the field to the main gates; Lorath assumed Tavie and her riders would arrive by that route.
To reach the Pommel, he and Keldon needed to cross the road out in the open, several hundred paces behind the horde, which they managed to do without being seen.
From there, they started up the ridge on the southern side of the glen but found it to be an unstable slope of shale.
So, they skirted around it and picked their way through more abandoned homesteads until the Pommel stood above and behind them.
Lorath could not yet see any cave. As they made their way through overgrown fields and pastures, the sounds of a secondary skirmish reached them, much closer than the main horde.
“Do you hear that?” Keldon asked.
Aside from the cavalry, Lorath knew of only one Amazon company on land outside the walls of the fort. “Adreona,” he said, and he broke into a sprint toward the fray.
Keldon followed him. They passed the remnants of several outbuildings and then came upon a party of six Amazon warriors in a degraded farmyard, their backs against the splintered hulk of a fallen barn, surrounded by Drowned.
Lorath glimpsed Adreona among them, and at the sight of her, he felt a powerful urge to rush to her defense.
But he resisted this impulse in favor of a clearer strategy, choosing instead to draw the enemy’s attention with a roar.
The Drowned turned in surprise to face him, and then several of them attacked.
Within moments Lorath’s polearm had taken off heads and limbs.
He ducked their confused, haphazard blows and swung his blade in all directions, fighting to break through their line.
The Drowned outnumbered the Amazons two or three to one, but Lorath’s distraction had disoriented the enemy for the few moments Adreona’s company needed to go on the offensive.
Their renewed war cries only heightened his own vengeful rage, but then he saw a juggernaut, swinging a colossal flail, bearing down on Adreona.
Lorath shouted her name and barreled toward her, unthinking, shouldering enemies aside to reach her.
He came up behind the brute and slashed low, cutting deep into the monster’s flanks, severing its hamstrings.
The thing wobbled and collapsed to its knees, still taller than Adreona.
She drove the behemoth onto its back and killed it with a spear thrust into its skull.
Then she looked at Lorath over the corpse.
“You should not be here!” she shouted.
Lorath hadn’t known what to expect from her when she saw him. He knew he had defied her orders, but he had hoped she would be at least somewhat pleased to see him, and perhaps even grateful for his aid.
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” she said, then turned away from him without waiting for a reply. By that time, the other Amazons had slain the rest of the Drowned, with some help from Keldon. The old sailor stood with his chest heaving, out of breath, several corpses at his feet.
“Back to the cave,” Adreona said.
She led them from the farmyard toward the hill behind it, then up onto a goat path that climbed the slope, using the terrain’s natural depressions and folds to keep them out of sight from the ground below.
After several switchbacks, they crested a bluff with a crevice in the rock set back from the ledge.
This opening admitted them into a large natural chamber the Amazons had obviously been using for some time.
Crates and sacks of supplies filled the corners, furs and other bedding lined the floor, and the cold ashes from an old cook fire sat near the mouth of the cave.
Upon entering, Adreona first checked each of her warriors for wounds, and after she confirmed they were all relatively uninjured, she rounded on Lorath with disciplined anger.
“Now. You will explain yourself.”
He folded his arms. “Your message arrived at Fort Galina, calling for aid. I watched Tavie ride out with a company on horseback—”
“When did Tavie ride out?” she asked.
“Two days ago.”
“How many?”
“Over thirty. Every mount fit to carry a warrior.”
“Thirty won’t be enough. To break this siege, we’ll also need warriors from the fleet to come ashore, and every spear inside the fort.” She strode to the mouth of the cave and looked out. “When I saw our ships, I had hoped to finally leave this cave and join them. The Drowned cut us off.”
“We have a ship,” said Keldon. “She’s anchored north of here.”
Adreona shook her head. “Tavie’s coming changes things. We need to stay here and warn them. Otherwise, they might come charging out of that canyon and straight into an army of Drowned.”
The first hint of an idea took shape in Lorath’s mind. “The canyon…”
“What about it?” asked Adreona.
“The southern slope is shale,” he said. “How unstable is it?”
Adreona pinched her chin in thought, as if the plan forming in Lorath’s thoughts had leapt to hers. “An avalanche?”
“The glen is a choke point,” he said. “Like the passageway into your keep. You draw the Drowned in, and then you bury them.”
Some of the other warriors in the cave had been listening, and when Adreona turned toward them, they nodded and shrugged their openness to the possibility.
“The warships are cutting off reinforcements from the water,” Lorath went on. “Leave them there. You just have to worry about the Drowned forces already on land. Even if you don’t kill them all, you could definitely soften them up.”
“How do you trigger an avalanche?” Keldon asked.
Lorath had not yet solved that problem.
It was Adreona who put forward the answer.