Fortress of Eagles

“They were not wicked men,” he said, fixing Parsynan with a stare, and heard in the distance Uwen’s shouting near the gate. He knew in his heart the viceroy had the right of the law in ways he had lately understood in Guelessar… but when had old men grown so desperate in Amefel as to make such a useless gesture, taking the citadel of Henas’amef, or half of it, as if the king or the king’s men would not come to take it back? He said, defending the earl he had known, however distantly: “They were not rebels, sir, until these few days.”

“Yet does he answer you?” Parsynan asked. “Does he open the gate? No, nor will. They are all in collusion. I beg Your Grace trust none of them and by no means open the outer gates!”

“We are loyal men!” Earl Drumman said. “We were always loyal men!”

“Your Grace,” Lord Parsynan said sternly, “you ca

“Your lordships,” he heard at his left, and a breathless Guelen guardsman pointed to the building. “Our men is up there, engaged. The earl’s trying to come into the west wing by the upstairs and attack our men with axes.”

And from his right, Uwen: “M’lord, the earl’s men shout through the gate that they’ll carry word to the earl. I don’t hear ’em rushin’ to open up on the other side. And they’re still shootin’ across the wall. They just ain’t hearin’ ye.”

“Let us bring down the gate,” he said. And to Lord Parsynan: “Sir, your men to the fortress hall. Keep it open, sir. That is essential.”

“Your Grace, prudence would suggest—”

“They are breaking through the fortress halls, sir, at this moment. I suggest you take your men there as you suggested and try to come through the halls. I’ll meet you at the south doors, inside.” He strode off in some haste toward the curtain wall, sweeping Uwen with him as Parsynan shouted protests at his orders, and then cursed his own men, bidding them rally to the kitchen stairs.

Uwen snagged a man by the arm to give quick orders. The man left ru

It was not the only arrow to fall. It was all blind fire coming from the other side of the wall, uncaring what it hit—a hazard primarily to men trying to open the gate. But if he could breach the South Courtyard, he could let in Captain Anwyll to assist him, and the South Courtyard doors to the Zeide itself would give them command of the center stairs, where all halls met inside. That was where he had told Lord Parsynan to meet him… and if they did not hold that intersection of stairs and prevent movement between the two wings, they would see bloody battle rage in the three floors of the palace.

More, while the viceroy had possession of all the water, the earl had the smithy and its hammers and bars, as well as the armory. That meant the earl’s men in the South Court had no shortage of weapons or arrows, as well as materials with which to bar doors against them, and if he could not press them hard from this side, and soon, they might end by having to besiege the south doors and break door by door into every co

More, he did not wantto bring harm and death into the place from which he would command the Amefin, and he felt, as strongly as if it were Unfolded to him, that the courtyard was the path they had to take, there, under the safe and open sky, not inside. He led men already on the verge of exhaustion, and if the pace slowed overmuch and their bodies chilled and their spirits began to flag, then the strength would run out of them like water.

“There are hammers and nails in the farrier’s shed,” he said to Uwen. “The hinges are on their side of the doors. Get ladders, if you can find them—timbers, else. Haste!”

“We’ll do our best, m’lord.” Uwen sent the nearest men ru

“Protect yourselves!” he shouted at them. “Go back to the stables! ” And just then a spent arrow struck Lord Drumman a glancing blow in the shoulder. “Get back!”

He could not delay himself further. An ambitious old man, ill prepared, had launched the rebellion for what might seem foolish reasons, but whoever commanded the rebel forces was no fool, and had no shyness at all to seize the best hold on the Zeide itself he could obtain and to harry them with a constant rain of arrows. That told him the mettle of the man in charge, and if he let that officer have room, he feared a rapidly moving attack chasing through the citadel and into an archer’s warfare in the great hall or in the garden and the East Court. Deaths of Guelenfolk or of Amefin could not serve him, a slaughter pressed on him, he suspected, half at least by Lord Parsynan.

But that might happen, it might well happen, the earl having set himself in an impossible position with the king’s authority. There had already been disrespect of the king’s messenger, at very least.

And he had to ask himself how long the other earls, those now at hisback, would bear Parsynan’s insults. Right now they were supporting a Guelen force in their town, and that was unprecedented. But Amefin pride had bent as far as it could bend.

Meanwhile the thump of unavailing axes alternated with that of hammers attempting the hinges and fittings of the gates—and time they spent at that task gave that rebel officer a chance to lay ambushes, and time wore down his travel-weary men, who had begun to stand about in dazed uncertainty. They had to move.

The stable grain stores, he said to himself, and went ru

“Open the door of the shed! ” he cried. “Go into the stables! Gather up sacks, barrels, whatever you can lay hands on, and bring them to the wall! Pile them as high as you can!”

They set to, and by the time the shed door was open, Uwen joined him. So did Lusin, Syllan, and his other guards, the ba

“Bring ’em!” Uwen shouted at any man they met, and as exhausted men stared at their piling sacks and barrels below the wall they took the idea and brought anything they could set hand to.

More sacks arrived, a steady stream of stored grain carried to the heap through the hazard of arrows, making a small mountain reinforced by poles from the horse run and the barrow they used for manure. A man went down, an arrow through his arm, his sack spilled, and they carried him away to safety, and carried his sack to the pile. In wild cheerful invention the frustrated Guard began bringing tables and gear from the kitchens, then small barrels from some other place. They heaved a half-constructed ladder up to men atop and near the crest of the wall. The two men who reached the top of the wall shouted for more sacks, more sacks, and as men passed them up, gathering them from scattered elements at the base of the pile, they flung them down on the other side, a steady stream of them, affording a route to the top for more than one man at a time, and a landing on the other side.