not like that. It doesn't make sense for the Marat to do this. To send a fraction of their force against us- and the one least experienced and capable at that. Why should they fight us piecemeal when they could bring everyone against us at once?"
"Marat don't think like we do," Bernard said. "You always get their raw recruits out in front. Sometimes they're out like velites, skirmishing in front of the larger masses of troops, and sometimes they're raiding parties that go out the night before, but they're always in front. This is just another example."
"They aren't stupid," Amara said stubbornly. "How many of their young men died just now? Hundreds? A thousand? For what? They killed half a dozen legionares and wounded more that will be back up on the walls in an hour at most."
Pirellus stepped down the wall, abruptly standing before Amara, arms akimbo. "You would have preferred it if they had killed more, perhaps?"
"Don't be stupid," Amara snapped. "I just think that there must be something else to what they're doing." She looked at Bernard. "Where are the Knights we saw before?"
The Steadholder frowned at her, but Pirellus spoke before he could say anything. "Indeed, Countess, where are they? I acknowledge that the Marat are on the move, but we have seen only one warband, thus far, with no hordemaster in evidence. You will be quite the laughingstock if Riva brings both his Legions here only to find no Marat to face."
Amara's temper flashed, and she faced Pirellus, ready to bring the man to task Bernard stood up, as though to get between them
Down the wall, one of the brass horns sounded a call to arms, a clarion note that clove through the cold furyht air and brought the veteran troops on the wall to their feet, shields and weapons ready, before its notes had died away
"Sir," snapped Giraldi, from the wall over the gates "They're coming again "
Pirellus turned his back on Amara and leapt up to his position over the gate
Out at the edge of the light, the Marat appeared again, rushing forward m a howling mob-but this time, their screams were punctuated not by the howling of the great, dark wolves, but by the metallic, whistling shrieks of the giant predator birds that raced beside them as the pale tide charged toward the walls
"Archers," Pirellus called again, and once more, in three humming, whistling waves, Marat dropped to the ground, the life driven from them by Aleran shafts "Spears'' Pirellus called, and once again, the Legions squared up to face the Marat
But that was where the similarity to the charge of Clan Wolf ended
There were no scaling poles this time, no ram to assault the gates Instead, the first rank of the Marat, howling their defiance, simply hurled itself at the walls and, running at a furious pace, leapt up to the top
If Amara had not seen it happen, she would never have believed it possible-but the Marat, without aid of any kind, simply hurtled into the air, grasped at the top of the fifteen-foot wall with one hand, and hauled themselves up to fight The great birds stalking beside them leapt up, too, even higher, furiously beating at the air with their stubby wings and holding themselves aloft just long enough to rake at the defenders atop the walls with their vicious talons, driving Aleran men back long enough for the young Herdbane warriors to haul themselves onto the battlements and throw themselves forward into battle with a fearless, even mindless abandon
Amara stared in startled horror as a Marat hauled himself onto the wall not ten feet from her, and his great bird landed beside him with a scream, its beak slashing wildly at an upraised shield The Marat lifted his knife and leapt at her, shrieking, while behind him another scrambled atop the wall in his place
Amara tried to dodge to one side, only to realize that there was nothing but the empty air of the courtyard beneath her. She sent out a frantic call to Cirrus, and, as the Marat rushed her, took two steps out onto the empty air, then sprang back to the stones of the wall behind him. He stared at her, stunned for a moment, even as he spun to pursue her. She thrust with the guardsman's blade, flat of the weapon parallel to the ground, and it sank home at one side of his chest, sliding between ribs and coming out again smoothly.
Something shrieked