The man made a combination attack, feigning a head blow, then turning his wrist to slash at Dash’s side. Dash nimbly stepped back, then forward, while the man’s sword point was moving past him and, before he could reverse his blade’s direction, Dash killed the man with a stabbing blow to the throat.
The constables overwhelmed the attackers at the gate as the thieves began to carry away their wounded. The Keshian agents fought to the last, but eventually they were all killed or disarmed.
Dash looked around, and when he saw everything was under control, he ran over to where Trina lay. The gate was still closed.
He knelt and cradled her in his arms and saw her skin was pallid and clammy. Blood flowed copiously from her stomach and Dash knew her life was draining away. He shouted, “Get a healer!”
A constable ran off while Dash cradled Trina in his arms. He tried to staunch the flow of blood by pressing on the wound, but the pain was almost unbearable to Trina.
She looked up at him and weakly said, “I love you, Sheriff Puppy.”
His tears fell unhindered. “You crazy good-for-nothing,” he said, “I told you to stay alive!”
He gathered her to him and she moaned, then whispered, “You promised.”
Dash was still holding the dead woman when the priest reached the gate. Gustaf put his hands on Dash’s shoulders, moved him back, and said, “We have work to do, Sheriff.”
Dash looked upward and saw the sky was brightening. He knew circumstances demanded he put aside his personal grief and the numbing sense of loss he felt. Soon the Keshian herald would approach the gate and make his final demand for surrender—for when the Keshian army saw the southern gate wasn’t open, they would know their only option was to attack, and they would come.
Twenty-Seven - Intervention
The horses panted.
Riders urged them on and prayed their mounts would hold out for one more day. Jimmy had put them on a punishing regimen, from dawn to dusk, with the shortest breaks possible. The horses were all exhibiting the results of the forced march, ribs beginning to show where not so many days before they had been sleek and comfortably fat.
Six horses had come up lame, and those riders had been forced to drop out, walking their animals back to Port Vykor or following after, hoping there would be a Kingdom army waiting when they at last got there. Two animals had been so badly injured they had been put down.
The troop was within minutes of being in sight of Krondor, and Jimmy prayed again that he was wrong in his surmise, and they would find the city peacefully going about its business. He would gladly accept the years of jests and taunts he would endure as a result should that be the case, but he knew in the pit of his stomach he was about to run headlong into a fight.
Dash crested a rise and saw a baggage train before him. Most of the baggage handlers were boys, but a few guards stood ready to defend the Keshian supplies. Dash shouted, “Don’t kill the boys!” and then pulled his sword. The baggage boys scattered, but the Keshian Dog Soldiers guarding the baggage train stood firm, and the battle was on.
Dash raced along the walls as the Keshians began their assault. The Keshian herald had been polite in his contempt, a quality Dash would have found more admirable had he not been in a nearly murderous rage over Trina’s death. It had taken all the self-control he could manage to not grab a bow and take the herald out of his saddle when he came for the third time, demanding the surrender of the city.
Patrick was back in his castle, under guard against another attack by agents of Kesh. Dash put aside the sinking feeling in his stomach that, if they should somehow survive the assault on the city, it would be a search of tedious proportions to uncover all the agents of Kesh.
Trumpets sounded and war horns blew, and the Keshian infantry marched forward. In files of ten men, they carried ladders. Dash could hardly believe they’d assault first with scaling ladders, without heavy machines or a turtle to protect the men. Then a hundred bowmen rode into view, and Dash called out, “Get ready to duck!”
A horn sounded and the men with the ladders broke into a run, while the horse archers spurred their mounts forward, between them. The horsemen unleashed a barrage of arrows, and Dash hoped all his men had heard the warning to duck. A clattering of arrows against stones and shields and the absence of more than a few oaths and screams told him most had understood. Then his own bowmen rose up and delivered a withering fire down on those below the wall. Dash crouched down behind a merlon and said, “Pass the word: target those with the ladders. Worry about the archers later.”
The soldiers on both sides passed the word, and Krondorian archers jumped up and fired at the ladder-bearers. They ducked as another round of arrows flew at the walls. Dash duck-walked to the rear of the rampart and called down to one of his constables, “Keep the patrols active. They may still be trying to get in through the sewers.”
The constable ran off and Dash returned to his place on the wall. A palace guardsman ran over and said, “We found the spy, sir.”