Chapter Fourteen Felnir #3
The turn of the tide brought a modicum of luck, for the defenders but not their foes.
While the crews of the six ships strove to maintain their position amid the shifting current, it proved impossible for the two vessels closest to the keep.
One was swept away from the causeway and left floundering a hundred yards out to sea, unable to unship its human cargo.
The other contrived to keep station until a wave of unexpected size forced them back.
As the ship retreated, its bows plunged, impacting with hull-shattering force on the causeway’s edge.
Some of those aboard were able to jump to safety but most went down with the ship as she surrendered to the sea’s embrace, leaving only a patch of wreckage and a knot of flailing figures.
“Ulfmaer blesses the Sea King!” Tyrheld called out, brandishing her axe above her head and raising a hearty cheer from the defenders on the wall.
Despite the sea god’s apparent intervention, Felnir saw little to celebrate.
As dawn broke over the Aryngyr, the other ships settled onto the causeway and the army they carried swiftly disembarked.
He saw many ladders among their rapidly assembled ranks, nor did they pause before setting off towards their goal.
Beyond the grounded ships, the boats carrying their reinforcements had already reached the causeway.
“Archers forward!” Felnir commanded. “Make ready with stones and water!”
His archers, only a few score in number, began to loose as soon as the attackers came within range.
Typically, the assaulting force would linger at the base of the track to reorder their ranks and send their own archers and slingers forward.
Not so this time. Charging through the thin hail of arrows they commenced to ascend the slope at the run.
All seemed to be crying out a discordant but familiar chant: “Death to the Liar King! Death to the Liar King!”
Quite why the Silver Dove had settled upon this particular name for her enemy remained unknown.
Felnir had surely been called worse in his time, but something about it rankled him more than he liked to admit.
He knew what Sygna would have said had she been at his side: You don’t like it because it’s true, my love.
You told an ocean of lies to make yourself king.
But so did every soul who ever sat a throne.
Despite their paucity of numbers, his archers acquitted themselves well.
By the time the first attackers reached the wall, he reckoned fifty or more had fallen, not that it had daunted their comrades in any way.
Ladders rose as they thronged the base of the wall, others using rams and axes to assail the oaken door sealing the gate.
Felnir ordered the boiling water cast over first, raising the grimly familiar tumult of screams. The stones went next, hefty chunks of granite crushing heads and smashing shoulders.
The cascade succeeded in felling most of the first wave, the defenders pushing their ladders from the wall, but the second rush was not long in coming.
This time they benefited from a steady barrage of arrows and slingshot, forcing Felnir’s warriors to take cover behind the crenellations.
Crouching between Falk and Tyrheld, he heard the thud of more ladders against the wall followed by a chorus of shouted exhortations as the first attackers began to climb.
“You know what to do,” he said, drawing the sword and inching back from the wall in readiness.
In response, Falk and Tyrheld positioned themselves to either side of the gap between two crenellations, watching the rhythmic shudder of the ladder.
When the first foeman appeared in the gap, Tyrheld darted from cover to thrust her dagger through the eyehole of his helm.
Letting out a screech, he fell from sight, his place swiftly taken by another who died when Falk’s axe cleaved his neck.
Hearing the thud of another ladder, Felnir turned to see a warrior clambering onto the battlement to his right.
The Sword of the Altvar blazed bright as Felnir swung, the blade lopping the warrior’s head from his shoulders in a single stroke.
The sensation thrumming through Felnir’s arm mixed exultation with that familiar implacable purpose.
The blade shone brighter than ever, Felnir holding it aloft to cast its light over the battlement and the crush of warriors below.
As the glow bathed them, the attackers stopped, every face uplifted to regard the sight of the Sea King and his gods-blessed sword.
Felnir saw some begin to back away, others shielding their eyes, but most standing in dumbfounded awe.
No longer were any voices raised to call him a liar.
“My lord,” Falk said. The outlaw squinted against the sword’s glow, pointing to the causeway.
Felnir had to lower the blade to make out the object of his interest. Halfway along the road a battle raged, the rearguard of the attacking force turned to meet a rush from the southern bank of the Kahl Ledda.
It appeared the entire reserve of the Sea King’s menda had issued forth to save him.
Throughout the previous few days, Felnir had wondered if this might happen, knowing it to be a potentially foolhardy tactic.
With his forces divided and the battlefield so constricted, the outcome made it a gamble.
Watching the struggle unfold, he saw only a bloody stalemate.
The Silver Dove’s warriors had created a solid shield wall across the causeway which showed no signs of breaking despite the frenzied attempts of his menda to pierce it.
Then he saw that Falk’s finger was pointed not at the scene of combat, but out to sea.
The Silver Dove’s fleet would normally remain at anchor during the assaults, but now they were frantically raising sails and sweeping oars in an attempt to turn about.
The reason became plain when Felnir spotted the many sails jutting above the horizon.
They soon resolved into warships arranged in an arrowhead formation.
As they drew closer, Felnir made out the sigil embalmed on their white sails: a black gull.
“Look to your fleet!” Felnir called out to the warriors below.
He pointed the sword out to sea, casting its light across the waves, banishing the dullness of morning to illuminate the fate of their ships.
Some were already locked in combat with the newcomers while others had set course to the north, oars churning the waves as they fled.
“Your cause is lost!” he cried. “Yet know the Sea King is merciful! I do not desire the deaths of so many brave souls! Lay down your arms and receive quarter!”
It was the hush of the throng that saved him, enabling his ears to detect the snap of the sling followed by the whistle of the pellet.
Felnir jerked his head an instant before the lead ball would have caved in his brow.
Instead it scored his flesh, the flare of pain bringing a shout to his lips.
A furious chorus filled the air, not from without the walls but within.
“Open it!” he heard Beyorn roar amid the clamour.
Then came the sound of the gate’s crossbeam being tossed aside and the squeal of its heavy hinges.
A glance at the courtyard revealed the sight of his most ardent followers rushing through the opened portal to hurl themselves at their foeman.
Their charge was delivered amid a chorus of animalistic snarls, Felnir shifting his gaze to the other side of the wall to see them carving a bloody swathe through the enemy ranks.
Heedless of their own protection, Beyorn’s cohort had cast their shields aside in their zeal, some even abandoned their weapons to claw and bite at any foe within reach.
Their ferocity birthed instant panic in a host already unnerved by the arcane light cast by the Sea King’s sword.
Some attempted to fight, others began to back away, and most fled to the false safety of the causeway.
There, a stalwart group of warriors was still holding out against his menda, meaning this battle was not yet won.
“Tyrheld,” Felnir called the battle maiden to his side. “Go and tell Vehldur to bring his warriors down to man this wall.”
Once she had sprinted off, he turned to Falk, hefting the sword. Its glow had diminished to its former brightness, but Felnir could feel its triumph. “Still some work to do, old friend. See if you can spare some.”
“I shall, my lord.”
Together, they descended from the wall and Felnir, King of Vorunvahl, led his remaining warriors to yet another victory sure to be spoken of for many an age.