Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Anna shouted a warning, leaping up as she drew her knife.

Lewenhardt’s arrow took the man from behind. He staggered and fell forward just as Wolfhere, turning, struck him down. But he still wasn’t dead. Anna ran forward as he groped toward the wall. She kicked away his spear, then leaped back as Wolfhere rolled him over and slit his throat.

“Wolfhere!” shouted Heribert desperately.

Anna turned to see Matto scooting up the narrow stair that led from the lower room to the upper. The youth jabbed his spear down, and down again with his right arm while his left arm was wrapped around Everwin, dragging him up as the other man kept kicking and kicking as though to shove away an enemy or to catch a step to propel himself upward.

“Damn,” said Wolfhere casually. He tossed the dead man’s spear to Anna. “Do your best, child.” He turned back to help Den and Johannes, both of whom she could now see being pressed backward up along the other stairs.

Heribert set Blessing down and leaped forward to pull Everwin free. Amazingly, the child had fallen asleep. Zacharias was nowhere to be seen.

Anna ran over to stand beside Matto as he heaved himself up onto the planks. Once Everwin was clear, she thrust the spear into his hands, then pried loose rocks free from the wall with Heribert’s help and started dropping them down the stairs as fast as they could get hold of new ones. Wings shattered. Men cursed. The angle and ferocity of their attack stymied the Quman for the moment.

“Anna, Anna, give me the baby!” Zacharias’ voice called from below, from outside the guard tower.

Darting to the side of the tower overlooking the inner ward of the little fort, Anna peered over the side. Zacharias had actually climbed over the parapet wall and slid down the outside of the watchtower to the inner ward, where only the ruined square of walls protected him from their attackers.

A trio of Quman archers had Lewenhardt pinned down in his redoubt. Den was wounded, an arrow stuck cockeyedly out of one shoulder, and he had fallen back behind Johannes and Wolfhere, who retreated step by laborious step back up the stairs in the face of superior numbers. An arrow glanced off Johannes’ helmet and he stumbled, only to be yanked out of reach of a Quman spear by Wolfhere.

“Rocks!” cried Everwin.

Two Quman riders leaped the fallen stones half blocking the entrance to the inner ward and pulled up inside. Zacharias shrieked in helpless fear and threw himself onto the ground in abject surrender. There was nothing she could do to help Zacharias, if he’d been so stupid as to leave the only refuge they had. But she could still, maybe, save Blessing.

As one of the Quman drew and aimed at the frater’s prostrate body, Anna gritted her teeth and tugged another stone off the wall before staggering back to throw it down right on the helmet of the Quman soldier trying to push up onto the second floor. Matto cheered weakly as the Quman dropped out of sight. Blood ran from both his legs as he sat down hard, face pale, too weak to fight.

“They’ll never take her,” cried Heribert, grabbing the spear out of Matto’s hands.

A horn rang clear and sweet. The Quman shouted to each other. The attackers below vanished between one breath and the next, and she heard them scrambling over rocks to get to their horses. The ring of swords over by Wolfhere ceased as abruptly. Anna ran over to the outer wall, standing on tiptoes and craning her neck just in time to see Wendish soldiers break out of the woods.

The lord of Walburg and twenty stout fighting men had arrived, thank God.

Good Wendish steel made short work of the last of the Quman. When they were all dead and sentries had ranged out to cover the ground, the lord pulled off his helm and coif to reveal that he was a woman.

“Well met, my lady Waltharia,” cried Wolfhere from the parapet walk. To Anna’s surprise, he was grinning, an odd expression on that normally secretive face. He shouted to the others. “Best go down and pay our respects.”

Zacharias staggered out of the inner ward, having suffered no worse injuries than scraped knees and hands. Only Anna and Heribert had noticed his ignominious escape attempt, and if Heribert meant to say nothing, then Anna decided she would keep her mouth shut, too. Surly was dug up from the first-floor rubble; he’d taken a hard blow to the head and was only now waking, but otherwise looked unharmed. The rest straggled over, limping, cursing, but otherwise victorious.

“God save us,” said Lady Waltharia as the motley defenders gathered before her. “I’ve never seen a more wretched crew than this one. Where’s the brat?”

Heribert was carrying Blessing, who yawned sleepily and cracked one eye, twisted up her face in a delightful grimace, and decided against waking up. With another yawn, she snuggled her head against Heribert’s shoulder and promptly went back to sleep.