The Skull Throne

Briar remembered Icha, remembered the sympathy he had felt for the man under the torturer’s screws. That treatment had been cruel, and wrong, and pointless. But it was nothing compared to what the enemy was willing to do.

Briar knew then that nothing would stop the Krasians from taking Colan’s Rise. He rubbed his fingers against the paper the count had given him. If he was to escape, it had to be soon.

The main road was too dangerous, so Briar moved to the far side of the bluff to scale down the sheer walls. With his climbing skills and the blacks he still wore, he could go where others could not.

Or so he thought.

At first Briar rubbed his eyes, thinking they were playing tricks on him. His night vision was strong, honed by a lifetime living in the darkness, but even it had limits.

He froze, straining against the dim starlight and the fires now raging on the waters below as Captain Dehlia and the others attacked the port.

There it was again. Movement on the cliffs. All over the cliffs.

There were dal’Sharum scaling Colan’s Rise, hundreds of them.

He scrambled the other way, racing through the archers. “Sharum on the cliffs! Sharum on the cliffs!”

“I see one!” an archer called, firing down into the rocks. He must have missed, because he cursed, pulling another arrow.

All around the bluff, archers were confirming the approaching warriors, taking their eyes from the docks as they attacked the closer targets. But the Sharum, black-clad and flat against the steep slope, were difficult targets, and more arrows were wasted than Krasians killed.

Thamos rode up to the sergeant in charge of the Laktonian archers. “Tell your men to stop wasting arrows and keep firing on those docks! I’m leaving a hundred horse to guard them.”

“And the rest of us?” Sament asked, riding up next to him.

Thamos pointed down the hill. “The rest of us are going to destroy the archers they have waiting to position here. They may take the rise, but they will not benefit from it.”

He looked to Briar. “The chaos in our wake …”

Briar nodded. It would be easy to slip away unnoticed with four hundred heavy horse as a distraction.

The count gave a shout, kicking his horse before he had time to rethink his course. The Wooden Soldiers thundered down the hill, sweeping the chi’Sharum aside. Unlike previous sallies, they kept on as they reached open ground, heading straight for the ranks of elite dal’Sharum archers.

The Krasians had not anticipated the move, but their surprise was short-lived, and they began to pepper the horsemen with a withering fire that thinned their ranks. The horses could not run in full armor, and as arrows began to find the gaps, they screamed and fell, often taking out neighbors in their fall.

Still they picked up speed, and suddenly they were on top of the archers, laying about with cavalry spears as their great horses trampled and crushed. The bowmen had no defense, and were quickly overrun.

Thamos led the attack, his spear a blur as his horse leapt to and fro. Sament rode close beside him.

But as the archers were destroyed, the Krasian army moved in. These were not chi’Sharum, given spears and pressed into service. These were true Sharum, bred to battle and trained since childhood, many of them mounted themselves. They closed in from all sides, breaking Thamos’ ranks and shattering his ordered men into chaos.

Still the battle raged. Sament kept close to Thamos, the two lords standing out in their bright armor. Sament batted a spear from Thamos’ path with his shield. Thamos skewered the man, then swung the Sharum’s body into the path of an enemy horse. Sament was ready, putting his spear into the rearing animal’s throat.

They seemed to be dominating the field around them, but from a distance Briar could see they were being separated from their fellows. Herded.

Briar knew he should flee. Should take his lead into the night and deliver news of the loss of the hill, and the letter to Leesha Paper.

But he could not bring himself to go. He pulled up his Sharum veil and flitted from stone to stone, getting closer to the battle.

Thamos and Sament fought their way into a ring, and suddenly found themselves in the clear. The dal’Sharum had circled an area of open ground.

There in the center of the circle was the Krasian leader, Jayan, marked by his white turban and veil.

“You fight well, greenlander,” Jayan called, raising his spear. “Shall we test your mettle against a true foe?”

Abban took up his distance lens—another gift from the Damajah. His Warders had painstakingly taken the device apart, studying the design, the warding, and the shard of demon bone that powered it. It had not taken long to produce more of them, and all his ship captains, Qeran included, had them now.

The device allowed him to see in Everam’s light—wardsight, the greenlanders called it. With it he could see the enemy ships as if they were right before him in bright day, with every hand illuminated and the wards on the their hulls glowing as if written in fire.

The water was dark, all its drifting magic drawn to the ships’ wards, but underneath the surface Abban could see the glow of demons, drawn to the commotion. They circled like a whirlpool, waiting only for a gap in the wards to pull whole ships down to Nie’s embrace.

On the docks and beach, the enemy slingers were taking a heavy toll. The demonfire was concentrated farther inland—the chin did not wish to destroy the docks. Their slinger baskets were filled with stones the size of a man’s fist, scattering to smash through fortifications, warriors, and engines alike. Scorpions added precise kills to the chaos, taking out shooters and kai when they stepped from cover.

And still, the withering fire from Colan’s Rise.

“They cannot hold,” Khevat said, pointing to galleys moving in behind the barrage, large enough to be seen in only the light of wards and fire. “The chin will overwhelm them when they land their forces.”

“If they land, honored dama,” Abban said.

Asavi appeared beside them, looking out onto the lake. Abban pretended to adjust his lens, stealing a glance at her through it. As he suspected, her many jewels glowed fiercely with magic, particularly the warded coins at her brow. No doubt she could see as well as he in the darkness.

“Leave war to true men, khaffit,” Khevat said. “I was studying the conquests of Kaji before your father wore his bido. There is nothing the dal’Sharum can do to stop the landing. They will have to prevail on open ground.”

Abban wasted no time arguing, skimming his lens to the south, finding what he sought at last. There, coming in fast from their hidden cove, his small fleet was nearly invisible on the dark water, unnoticed by the enemy.

The lead vessel was Everam’s Spear, commanded by Drillmaster Qeran and crewed entirely by men from Abban’s Hundred, a sleek galley with twenty oars to a side and square sails that could catch most any wind. But the black sails were furled, the galley shooting like an arrow for the enemy fleet under oar power alone. The fore and aft castles had no slingers, only specially designed scorpions and many, many men.

Two more galleys followed, and a score of smaller vessels—these carrying neither slinger nor scorpion, their holds packed with Sharum.

Abban produced a second warded distance lens, a cheap copy of his own, but effective enough. He wanted his old teacher to see this.

“You are right, dama, not to put faith in the dal’Sharum to stop the enemy. Watch now as my kha’Sharum do what they could not.”