tunnel, Vaelin rushed towards the nearest rope, gathering it up and casting it over the parapet. The tail end landed directly between Sho Tsai and Tsai Lin. They backed against the wall to the left of the tunnel, flanked by perhaps twenty surviving soldiers, mostly Red Scouts, Corporal Wei amongst them. Vaelin saw the general push the rope at his son and then voice a harsh, implacable command when the Dai Lo shook his head. Tsai Lin paused to block a thrust from a Redeemed, using his sabre to parry the enemy’s blade as his sword came round to lop the man’s arm off above the elbow. Casting the sabre aside, he sheathed his sword, took hold of the rope and began to climb.
The general turned to Corporal Wei, jerking his head at the rope. The corporal drove his fist into the face of a snarling Redeemed, bowed low to his general and then, with a shout to his comrades, hurled himself into the ranks of their enemies. The soldiers formed a shield around their general, spears and swords hacking with furious energy. Seeing Sho Tsai hesitate, Vaelin shouted, “Without you, this city falls!”
With a final glance at his men, the general sheathed his sword and gripped the rope, he and his son holding on as Vaelin and a score of crossbowmen and soldiers hauled them up.
“The gate is barred,” Vaelin told Sho Tsai as he helped him over the parapet. “I had to . . .”
“I know.” The general turned to regard the scene below, watching the last of the Red Scouts perish beneath a tide of stabbing, hacking Redeemed.
With the slaughter complete the Darkblade’s host fell to a feral howl of triumph loud enough to pain the ears. They crowded the second tier from end to end, a sea of upturned faces, besmirched by the gore and soot of battle, all screaming their hate at the silent survivors on the final wall. Then, with a jarring suddenness, the roaring mob fell into a silence near absolute but for their laboured breathing.
“He’s here,” Vaelin heard Luralyn say. She stood at the parapet with Varij at her side, face pale and expressionless as the host parted to allow a lone rider to walk his stallion through the blood-slicked streets.
Kehlbrand halted his mount some two hundred paces from the wall, once again displaying a keen eye for judging the range of an arrow. He sat for a time, face as blank as his sister’s and just as silent as the army that surrounded him. Then he raised his hand to display the bundle it held.
Vaelin heard Varij let out an enraged hiss whilst Luralyn betrayed no reaction to the sight of Juhkar’s head twisting slowly in her brother’s grip. It trailed a red arc through the air as he tossed it towards the upper-tier wall. It landed just to the front of the gate, rolling to stare up with sightless eyes.
Kehlbrand and Luralyn stared at each other for barely the space of a heartbeat, but Vaelin knew for her at least it must have felt like an age. Finally, her brother blinked and looked away, turning his horse and cantering back the way he came whilst his army’s roar resumed, louder and more savage than before.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Come nightfall, with no sign of a further assault, Sho Tsai ordered the tunnel through the upper-tier wall collapsed. Ahm Lin lent his mason’s eye to the work, identifying the stones that could safely be loosened without undermining the wall above. Within hours there was sufficient weight piled up behind the gate that no number of insanely inspired Redeemed could hope to breach it.
“Now he will have to sap,” Sho Tsai stated. “Dig his way through ancient cobble and foundations, then tunnel towards the walls. There is no other way to bring them down and they are too high to climb.”
He sat on the table where Sherin had tended to the worst of the wounded. Every surface in the room had been scrubbed with vinegar and sawdust scattered on the floor, but the taint of sundered flesh and spilled effluent lingered. The general barely winced as Sherin went about the work of stitching his various cuts, the worst of which was a deep laceration to the nape of his neck.
“He may have imprisoned us here,” Sho Tsai added, pausing and gritting his teeth as Sherin tied off the final stitch. “But defeating us will be the work of months.”
The general sounded confident, if tired, after