“I fear you have need of me this night. The mason will go with the young ones.”
Sehmon and Ellese were swiftly despatched to the third tier with Ahm Lin, though not without protest, which Vaelin had been quick to quash. “You’ll have plenty of targets before the night’s out,” he told Ellese, moving closer to add, “and I need someone to guard Sherin. Chien’s blade won’t be enough if this gate falls.”
She gave a reluctant grimace before running after Sehmon and Ahm Lin, calling over her shoulder, “I hope she’s got more of that poison to hand!”
Vaelin took up position in the centre of the Skulls whom he had arrayed directly in front of the gate. Another regiment was stationed behind with two more positioned on either side of the gate. Nortah and Juhkar stood to his front with their bows ready whilst Alum placed himself at Vaelin’s right.
“What manner of god,” the Moreska wondered aloud, staring at the shuddering gate in mystification, “makes madmen of his followers?”
“Some would say all of them,” Vaelin replied, allowing himself a grin at Alum’s reproachful scowl. His humour soon faded, however, as the gate voiced its loudest boom yet.
The great oak doors bulged, the brackets securing it to the wall unleashing a whining groan of protesting metal as they were wrenched from the stone. The doors relaxed for an instant as the pressure retreated, then bulged again with even greater force. The heavy crossbar bent and then splintered as a narrow gap appeared between the doors, closing and then widening, first an inch, then a foot.
The grinning, wide-eyed face of a Redeemed appeared in the gap, Nortah raising his bow then stopping at the sight of the blood pouring from the man’s mouth and eyes. The prayer chants grew louder as the doors were forced wider, all cadence lost now as it became a manic, continual yell. With a final heave, the crossbar snapped and the doors swung wide. The corpses of the Redeemed burst through to slam against the portcullis, unleashing a torrent of gore that washed over the cobbles to stain the boots of the waiting soldiers.
“Steady!” Vaelin called out, hearing several soldiers retch at the sight.
The portcullis began to resemble a net crafted from mere string as it buckled, the dead flesh pressed against it bursting under the pressure to unleash the contents of bowel and vein. The corpses were piled so high that Vaelin could see no sign of what transpired beyond the gate, but the unending snap of bowstrings and shouts from the battlement indicated the Redeemed continued to face a lethal assault from above. But still the pressure increased, blood leaking in torrents as the portcullis bowed, strained and then came loose from its fastenings. It was borne down in an instant, smothered by the corpses that slid clear of the gate like fish spilled onto a dockside, and in their wake came the living.
The first was a woman, naked but for a few matted rags clinging to her gore-covered skin. Her hair and much of her scalp had been singed away by burning oil, and her bared skull trailed smoke as she charged, leaping the bodies of her fellow Redeemed with feral agility. She bore no weapon but her hands were formed into claws, reaching out like talons for Juhkar’s face as she closed on him, then fell dead with one of his poisoned arrows through her chest.
A score more followed immediately after, all similarly maimed and maddened. Most were swiftly felled by Juhkar and Nortah’s arrows, those that weren’t meeting their ends on the spear-points of the surrounding soldiers.
For one scant moment the gate appeared empty save for the red mass of bodies that crowded its base. Vaelin began to voice orders for the Skulls to rush forward and bar the entryway, but then he heard it, a sound he remembered from the day Varinshold had been reclaimed for the queen. The Renfaelin knights had charged through the streets, and the sound of their horses’ shoes on the cobbles had been like the clang of a thousand anvils.
“Prepare for cavalry!” he shouted, sending the assembled regiments into a new formation. The soldiers on either side of the gate, moving with the speed and precision that confirmed their veteran status, formed phalanxes three ranks deep. The first rank knelt with spears held at a low angle, the second braced their spears on the ground to hold them out diagonally, whilst the third brought theirs to head