Elania strode from the map room, lips pursed as she drew on leather gauntlets. The fighting was imminent. A sense of calm washed over her. Planning, misdirection and living behind a façade; none of these were natural to her. Fighting, though, fighting was home.
The barracks was a complex of narrow twisting stone corridors with junctions and murder holes aplenty; designed centuries ago to confound any potential invaders, to force them to pay in blood for every step gained.
She took point, twin swords drawn before her. Palin and Bluff grumbled as usual, but she was the most competent fighter among them. She’d lowered her guard in the map room and wasn’t about to do so again.
She wondered if Denning had planned for his failure. The hubris of the man was enough to cast some doubt on that, but she had to assume he’d informed some of the noble officers of her intentions. Those officers certainly had the guile and the craft to set an ambush in the event Denning’s gambit failed.
She stepped into a practice yard. A colonnaded walkway encompassed the perimeter, offering some measure of shadowed cover, and she remained within its protection. The yard was empty, which would have been unusual on any other night of the year. On Adenne’s Night, soldiers were drafted in to bolster the ranks of the City Guard.
Movement caught her eye on the far side of the yard. A scout? It wouldn’t do to take any chances. ‘Palin, Bluff, make your way to your companies. Looks like you’ll have to go the long way around. Gather reinforcements as you go. Hurry, but be wary of an ambush; I think we’ve been rumbled. You know what to do. Munul, with me.’
She watched the twins trot off in the same direction as the scout and offered a small prayer to Vidocan, the God of War. She shook herself, letting out a hiss of frustration. Silly, superstitious nonsense, but a measure of how tightly wound she was this evening.
Hefting her swords, she traversed the perimeter of the practice yard and around a corner towards the parade ground. Munul stalked a pace behind her and out to one side, knives gleaming in the moonlight. Elania kept them to the wall, knowing one arrow could end it all for either of them. If things had gone to plan, Munul’s company would be waiting on the far side of the parade ground, in the guard houses flanking the main entrance to the barracks.
The parade ground was a large square of packed earth, flanked on one side by the armoury and the barbers’ ward. Elania crept along the outer wall of the ward, sticking to what shadow it offered.
Damn Denning and his treachery!
She damned herself as well; she should have known better than to take that two-faced rodent into the fold.
She poked her head around the corner of the ward and jumped backwards into Munul, who righted her. An arrow clattered on the earth of the parade ground twenty paces beyond where her head had been. The telltale sound of pounding boots reached them and she cocked her head. ‘Thirty of them. Maybe more.’
She cast a pleading look towards the guard houses, but saw no movement. Had Denning got to Munul’s company? Had she sent a hundred or more loyal soldiers to their deaths with her own treachery? ‘Guards! Guards!’ Elania bellowed, backing up a few paces to await whatever appeared from around the corner.
The soldiers arrived, fanning out. Eyes from beneath helmets fixed on her and hesitated. Perhaps they hadn’t really believed they would face Elania Gallyn until now, when she stood before them in the flesh. That moment’s hesitation was all she needed, and she was among them, knowing Munul would follow. She saw the whites of the first man’s eyes before the point of her sword punched through and into his brain.
The best way to overcome her and Munul was to rush them as one, but the attackers’ training abandoned them. Elania slipped into a guard position, swords high, back-to-back with Munul. An implacable calm washed over her as it always did when she fought. This was familiar. This was what she trained for, day after day.
She could wait for them to break rank, for one to attack, but time was of the essence. She needed to break out before thirty became sixty. She had to reach the Curtain.
Everything slowed as she lunged forward into the press. Perhaps her attackers were surprised she would make the first move, or perhaps they hadn’t appreciated how fast she was. There was no clash of metal; the slicing arc of her sword neatly bypassing a frantic attempt at a parry, and she felt iron part leather armour and then flesh. The man went down, hamstrung with a precision even a barber would be proud of.
She spun as a sword flashed where her head had been half a heartbeat earlier. A faint snick sounded as the edge of her blade bit into her attacker’s sword arm. The grunts from behind told her Munul was doing all she could to fend off the assault from her direction. Elania whirled and took out a woman’s kneecap with a low sweep, the falling body fouling the stride of a man preparing a thrust aimed at Munul’s exposed flank.
She was cold, empty of emotion, but thought remained; clear, lucid thought. She did not fight to kill. While these were the very people she was trying to depose, they were soldiers following orders. The problem lay higher up; she had always justified this mission to herself as cutting the head off the serpent.
Her swords rang out in a blur, disabling attackers with a series of precise thrusts and slices. The blows forced them to disengage. Wounds that would not bleed, yet would leave a man or woman unable to stand or pick up a sword. Nothing a squad healer or a barber couldn’t deal with. These soldiers were Caranin, and it would not do to leave a pile of dead in her wake. There would be time to heal after, if there was an after.
Munul slammed into Elania from behind as she attempted to step inside a soldier’s guard. Elania’s balance was fouled, and the soldier caught her in an awkward embrace. Light flashed behind her eyes, her brain reverberating around her skull as her opponent thrust her forehead right between Elania’s eyes. Her vision blurred and tears streamed down her face. A vague shape lashed toward her head and she leapt backwards, yelling as she toppled over a recovering Munul. She hit the hard earth with a thump that knocked all the wind out of her before rolling left and spinning to regain her feet even as a sword stabbed the ground where her chest had been a moment earlier. Her head throbbed and a trickle of blood dripped off the end of her nose.
She spat blood and planted her heels, taking up a guard position.
Let them come.
It appeared her attackers sensed weakness as three of them rushed in to finish the job. Her head felt thick, slowing her movements, and she took heavy parries on her blades that resonated up her arms and down into her spine and her legs. She stabbed and slashed where she could, unable to execute her earlier precision. Blood sprayed, and soldiers howled. A glance at Munul revealed the woman fighting one-handed, the other arm hanging limp by her side.
She batted away a thrust in sluggish, desperate defence, taking a nick to her arm. Growling with hot anger, she slashed down in riposte, and felt an arm sever at the elbow. Blood and spit flew from her mouth as she faced the remaining attackers. Seven left. They turned as one, fleeing deeper into the barracks. Munul flung a knife after them that fell way short of its target.
Elania touched a hand to the bridge of her nose and winced as she felt the sting of split skin. The sound of boots refocussed her attention. A burly sergeant saluted her smartly, fist to opposite shoulder.
‘Apologies, Sir. We heard the fighting and mobilised as quickly as we could.’ Elania waved away his apology and turned to Munul, who simply shrugged. It felt like a bell had passed since the soldiers attacked them, yet if the sergeant spoke true, little more than a hundred heartbeats had elapsed.
Spitting blood that had run into her mouth, Elania surveyed the men and women arrayed before her. She’d hoped for more, but it would have to suffice. Could she assault the Curtain with a hundred troops? Maybe with the element of surprise. Her prior concern was whether they would even make it that far; what traps had Denning and his cronies laid for her? She cocked an ear and the sounds of fighting reached her. There would be no relief from Palin and Bluff, but maybe they could occupy any would-be ambushers to allow Elania to do her part.
‘We need to move,’ she instructed the sergeant. She opened her mouth to tell Munul to remain. At a hard look from the woman’s deep brown eyes, the words died on Elania’s tongue. She turned to the Sergeant. Barrel, that was his name. ‘Get your troops to fall in. I’ll brief you on the way.’
‘The way, Sir?’
‘The Curtain,’ she replied, regaining the calm she was renowned for.
The man’s bushy brows knitted as he frowned. ‘Was there an attempt on the city, Sir? I heard nothing.’
She kept her voice low, her tone serious. ‘No, Barrel. We’re going to open the gates. And the Guard won’t like it one bit.’
A quiet street wasn’t the same as an empty street. With much of the city in the midst of the sort of merriment that would result in dreams fulfilled and regrets aplenty, the darker side of Adenne’s Night showed its face. Hidden faces eked from mouths of alleys for a cursory look at a company of soldiers marching past. Some bolted, convinced the company had been sent to apprehend them, others edged a pace deeper into shadow, toying with concealed knives for reassurance.
Elania ignored them all, intent on reaching the city gates as quickly as possible. Boots crunching against cobbles thumped in her ears, but if she cocked her head just so, she was convinced she could hear shouting from the direction of the gates. Plans came and went in her mind and she hissed in frustration. Any plan would fall to pieces the moment they arrived at the gates.
The deep timbre of the river swishing its ancient course through the city grew louder as they approached the North Bank. A youth rounded the corner at a trot, head turned in the opposite direction as he collided with Barrel and hit the cobbles hard with a grunt and a wheeze. Barrel reached down and hoisted the lad back up to his feet. ‘What’s got you spooked, boy?’
‘Soldiers!’ the boy shouted. ‘Sir,’ he added belatedly as he realised he’d run into more soldiers. He tugged at Barrel’s unrelenting grip, attempting to twist back the way he’d come from.
‘How many, and where?’ Barrel growled.
‘Um… pardon, Sir. Can’t count that high. Four dozens. Twice that number, I think. Just to the west of the North Bank docks they was, where the road narrows, near the tunnel. Pulling carts around to make a blockade, looked like.’
Satisfied with the report, Barrel let the lad down. ‘Go on, boy. Run home fast, and stay there ‘til morning. Don’t tell anyone about what you saw.’ Once the boy was out of earshot, Barrel turned to Elania. ‘A hundred. That makes it an even fight, and begging your pardon, Commander, they don’t have Elania Gallyn on their side.’
‘Yes, and they know that as well as we do.’
‘They mean to cause a delay. They’ll have sent runners to the other barracks for reinforcements. Every heartbeat they hold, we pay for in lives.’ Elania turned to regard Munul. Her breathing was laboured from the fast-march from the barracks. She’d been sewn up, and she was tough. For her to show such exhaustion meant the woman could barely stand. The set of her jaw said there would be no sending her away, however.
Munul nodded. ‘So we slice through them, hard and fast, like Raefar’s own fury. Do you know which side of the river we need to be on?’
Elania shook her head. ‘No, the Guard roll dice to decide where the commander will be stationed on any given night. We have to hope for Tumult’s nod.’ She kept her voice low; no need to let her soldiers in on the game of chance she was currently playing. No need to let them know of the high treason they were about to commit.
‘We don’t want to try the tunnel. Messy, that.’ Barrel sounded like he’d been there before, and didn’t want a repeat.
‘Agreed. North Bank it is. Wedge formation with heavies on the tunnel side. I’ll take point. We slice through and we run for the gate.’ As ever in these situations, she felt like her plan was lacking something, but she couldn’t see anything in the eyes of her officers that confirmed her fears.
They rounded the corner onto the North Bank. Elania’s boots skidded on the cobbles, her arm rising to shield her face. Wagons and carts blocked the way as flames licked skyward from the bank of the river to the buildings overlooking the street. It was hard to tell, but it looked like those buildings were smouldering. The fire would spread, and quickly, once the timbers caught. ‘Barrel! Send a runner. Get a fire crew, or even better, a mage.’ Where they would find either at this time on Adenne’s Night, she had no idea.
The sickening thud of arrows piercing armour and flesh preceded the crumpling of her soldiers as they died where they stood. The deep rumble of boots came from behind, and she knew they had walked right into the perfect ambush.
Her feet moved of their own accord, towards the only enemy she could see, and her swords sang from their sheaths. Arrows fizzed past her face and into the soldiers who had followed her on this suicidal charge into the gaping mouth of the tunnel. Noble troops stood firm, waiting like row upon row of rotten teeth. Waiting to take the fatal bite that would put an end to this paltry uprising. History would be rewritten, Elania Gallyn scrubbed from the record. Just another soldier with ideas above her station. Swiftly put in her place and dumped into the river to be carried out into the Cut and the ocean beyond.
The nobles’ line bowed where she struck, afraid to cross blades in a fight they could not win. Once again, she looked into the disbelieving eyes of men and women who could not process what they witnessed; Elania Gallyn was leading Caranin troops against them right here in the city. A moment’s hesitation was all she needed to slide past a wavering guard and open up a torso. The sound of wet entrails spilling onto the floor of the tunnel was behind her by the time she severed a sword arm clean at the elbow. A spinning blow afforded her a look behind, confirming they needed to push through hard and fast before the advancing noble troops coming up the rear closed the trap.
She doubled her efforts, parting skin like silk; stabbing into the weak points of armour as though she were embroidering a shawl. The calm washed over her once again despite the desperate situation. Placid, within the serenity of battle, she moved by instinct alone, devoid of emotion. There was only action and reaction, resulting in a terrible dance that left a trail of dead in her wake.
She dropped into a guard position. There was no one left to stab. Munul pushed through the press of soldiers, holding her arm where her wound had reopened. ‘I swear by Vidocan’s golden balls, woman, I almost stopped fighting just to watch you.’
Elania grunted in reply. A quick assessment told her she’d lost roughly a third of her numbers. ‘Come. We’ll be makeshift pincushions if we don’t move.’
Her bedraggled company found the South Bank clear; it appeared the nobility had utter faith in their trap. She gazed across the river where the conflagration lit up the North Bank. Enemy soldiers milled around in confusion, amazed Elania’s troops had won through the tunnel, but she could see officers harrying their units onwards, if only to maintain order through giving the soldiers something to focus on.
She whirled to face her company. ‘Run!’ she growled, pushing her shoulder under Munul’s arm. She was aghast at how much the woman leaned on her for support. She glanced at Munul, now pale, eyes glazing over. ‘When we reach the gate, you sit this one out.’
Munul breathed a weak laugh, opened her mouth to protest.
‘That’s an order. No fighting.’
‘Sir,’ came the croaked response.
The Curtain loomed ahead. It felt taller than it ever had before. A barrier penning them in rather than keeping enemies out, housing the Guard she somehow had to convince to open the gates, to allow aggressors inside the city for a greater good. She knew what it would take, and it weakened her knees, slowed her steps as they pushed along the almost deserted South Bank.
Her head cleared, and the distant crash and roar of fighting reached through. It took a moment for her to realise it was coming from the other side of the Curtain before she broke back into a run. Her company would follow, for now.
What was Galgun doing? This wasn’t part of the plan. Attacking the Curtain was insanity and Galgun, of all people, knew as much. Something must have triggered such madness, but here they were and the need to open the gate was now even more desperate. She groaned. The Curtain Guard ahead, noble troops behind, her allies on the other side of an impenetrable wall as tall as a mountain and thick as a house.
She arrived at the gatehouse to find it barred by fifty grim-faced Curtain Guard, spears and shields at the ready. Standard procedure during an attack. Haste was still required, however; a full complement of noble soldiery would crash into their rear any time now.
She addressed the Captain, who had a beard shot through with white, but a firm grip on his spear. ‘Captain, I am Elania Gallyn. I request you take me to the Bolt.’
The man nodded. ‘I know who you are, lass. Bolt’s a wee bit busy. There’s scrapping atop the wall, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘I assure you, friend, this is of the utmost importance.’
‘Nothin’ more important than the defence of the city, lass. You’re here to help, of course…’ his gaze flicked to the switchback stairs which scaled the city side of the wall.
The muscles of her jaw flexed as she forced the words out. ‘Sir, I’m here to open the gate.’
The Captain’s eyes widened momentarily, before they narrowed in understanding. ‘Can’t let you do that, lass.’ He shifted his stance, and his fellow soldiers followed suit.
‘Please, Captain. The men and women on the other side of the wall are Caranin. They are not the enemy.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The enemy is within.’
Boots sounded on the cobbles of the South Bank behind her, and the Captain glanced over her shoulder to the approaching noble troops. ‘I don’t pretend to know what’s at play here, lass. A good soldier like me falls back on what he knows. And what I know is this: If you’re on the outside and you’re trying to get in, you’re the enemy. The gate stays shut.’
‘Captain, I don’t wish for any bloodshed here.’
‘Blood’s the only currency a soldier understands.’ The look on his face told her he knew whose blood would be spent, but he thrust his spear at her anyway.
Her swords were out of their sheaths in an instant. Despite his resignation a moment earlier, surprise still flashed across his face as she deflected his blow. ‘Zaggo’s beard, woman, you’re fast!’ They were his last words as she ducked inside his reach and opened his throat.
The front row of the remaining Guard stared at her for a long moment. In that moment, their disbelief stabbed at her, more lethal than any weapon, threatened to push her to her knees. It would be easy to fall on their wavering spears, to escape those accusing, knowing looks. She knew those same looks would be painted on the faces of her own soldiers. She wasn’t ready to face that. Not yet, maybe not ever, and so she stared resolutely forwards.
‘I need to open the gate,’ she pleaded.
A shout went up, a wordless roar, and spears thrust at her. The allure of sharpened steel called to her. It was only in the final moment she took evasive action, blocking and dodging and grunting as a spear point grazed her arm. The greater reach of the spears made it difficult to close, to cut a swathe through to the gatehouse to stop the slaughter on the other side of the wall. The Guard knew what they were about; all they had to do was hold her there until the noble troops fell upon Elania’s rear. They took up a defensive position, ranks of men and women bristling with pointed metal.
Her company hadn’t moved to support her. She heard Munul now, breathlessly urging them forward. ‘Attack, you damned dogs! You’ve got about a hundred heartbeats to take that gatehouse or those noble troops are going to ram two feet of metal up your arses! Now, fight!’
For all the Guard’s discipline and spears, they were the softer target, and the place of safety lay behind them. Men and women fell upon those spears, but desperation won through. Swords lashed out and found gaps in the wall of spears; those same spears were tossed to the rear to form a defensive line against the onrushing noble troops.
Elania lent her swords to the effort; with gaps becoming easier to find as the Guard’s ranks dwindled, she landed blows with ease, always aiming to incapacitate rather than to kill.
She pushed through the defences of a grey-haired woman and sliced at the ribs, feeling her opponent fold around the blade. Not so deep a cut, but it would need healing. No-one opposed her now, and she pushed troops past her and into the stone gatehouse.
Forty soldiers crowded the gatehouse now. So few. ‘Bar the door!’ she yelled, hearing the heavy thunk! of arrows on wood.
She looked up at her soldiers and, in that instant, she understood what the night had cost her. None would meet her eyes, and she couldn’t blame them.
She sheathed her swords and leaned against the wall, looking at the stone ceiling.
‘Open the gates.’
You write action really well. And the chapter had a solid emotional coda 👏