Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,67

our people, and what they love, and what they admire, and what they strive and hope for. That will endure in other cities and other places long after the streets of Esgallien grow green with grass. So, elùgroth, attack us if you must. Should you be victorious, know this: you might raze our city, but you can never extinguish the light that lasted a thousand years, and that light shines all the brighter as darkness gathers.”

The elùgroth stood still. Silence deepened. No man on the wall moved or spoke. At length, Gar-galen bowed, and then without answer turned back to his host.

A murmur rippled along the battlements. Swords were struck against shields and a chant began.

Esgallien! Esgallien! Esgallien!

It swelled and rolled over the field below. The sorcerer did not look back. Instead, he gave a signal and the war drums of the elugs began to beat.

Aranloth sighed. “You’ve learned much since first I met you. And even if Gar-galen’s host wins the day, you have robbed him of some of the victory he expected. He said as much when he bowed. Few are the times that I have seen him lost for words.”

“Well, if he was lost for words, he’ll make his actions speak all the more loudly.” Lanrik looked over the enemy host. “See – he already orders the next attack.”

A talnak horn sounded at that moment, and a mass of elugs surged forward.

“Yes,” Aranloth answered, “but this time he will not attack with elugs only. Dark sorcery will follow in their wake.”

The enemy raced toward them. In their trail came the archers. They all moved swiftly and with precision, regardless of their wild yelling. Yet something that Lanrik could not see properly moved amid the great host behind them.

The charge hit the wall, and the elugs threw up their ladders and ropes. Lanrik knew well enough what to expect. And the men were prepared for it. They could, perhaps, endure a siege like this of months. But this was no ordinary army that attacked them. It was vast, and growing, and seven sorcerers led it.

The elugs who survived arrow, spear and rock reached the rampart. There, they were cut down. And so swiftly was it done that they became resigned to their fate and fought without hope.

When the retreat sounded, those waiting their turn at the base of the wall receded like an outgoing tide and left their brethren atop the wall to die. As a black wave they rolled back to the host, but something was now visible in the open space that they left behind.

A portion of trunk from a massive tree, one that had grown for centuries and been felled in some dark valley among the hills and drawn here with immense effort, lay on the ground. Its girth was some ten feet. Its length fifty. The bark was stripped away, and the root and crown ends removed. But the exposed timber was not pale as it should have been. It was soaked in blood that turned it black. And great bands of iron clasped it like claws, and from the bands hung chains, and the metal of each link was as thick as a man’s arm.

Each of the heavy chains was held by several lethrin. With a great heave, a hundred of them hauled in unison and lifted the log. As it came off the ground, Lanrik saw the near end clearly. A foot-thick cusp of iron was fitted tightly around it and held in place by metal bolts.

The enemy had built a mighty battering ram. Soaked by blood, it would be slow to catch fire. Massive, it would test River Gate as it had never yet been tested. Capped by iron, the wood would not split or shear on impact.

The elug war drums rumbled. The lethrin walked slowly ahead. Behind, in a dark wedge, came the elùgroths.

The lethrin gathered speed. They began to trot. At the head of the ram, the dull iron cap now flickered. As the lethrin drove it forward, the light flared into a sizzling green flame, bright but sickly, the hue of putrescent wounds and rotted meat. It formed a circle, with three slanted lines in its center: the drùgluck sign of ill omen.

The elùgroth wedge halted. Lanrik thought they would attack the gate. Instead, they pointed their wych-wood staffs at the tower where he stood. Gar-galen, it seemed, wanted to kill him. Or Aranloth. Or, more likely, to distract the lòhren from helping defend the gate from the