She looked up at the stars, now and then visible through the pale clouds overhead, and found herself vaguely surprised that no tears fell. She was too tired to cry.
Drums rolled, and trumpets sounded out orders, different brazen tones calling to separate centuries and maniples of the Legion. Men began to line the walls, while others drew water in preparation for fighting fires. Watercrafters, both Legion Healers, like Harger, and homeskilled wives and daughters of the legionares made their way to the covered shelters inside the walls, where tubs of water were filled and held in preparation to receive the wounded. Firecrafters tended to blazes on the walls, while windcrafters of the Knights at Garrison took to the air above, flying in patrol to warn and ward any surprise attack from the darkened night skies. Earthcrafters manned stations at the gates and walls, their weapons nearby, but their bare hands resting on the stone of the defenses, calling on their furies to imbue them with greater obdurate strength.
The wind began to blow from the north, bringing to Amara the scent of the distant Sea of Ice and of men and of steel. For a time, as distant light began to brush against the eastern horizon, all was silent. Tense anticipation settled over those inside the walls. In one of the barracks buildings, emptied now of men and filled with the children from the outbuildings and the town, children sang a lullaby together, the sound of it sweet and gentle.
Amara pushed away from her darkened patch of wall and paced forward, toward the gates that faced out into the Marat lands beyond Garrison. The guards at the base of the walls stopped her, but Centurion Giraldi saw her and waved her past them. She mounted a ladder that led up to the battlements above the gate, where archers and firecrafters had gathered the most thickly, prepared to rain death down on anyone attempting to storm the gates of the town.
Giraldi stood beside Pirellus, now decked out in armor of gleaming steel. The Parcian swordsman glanced at her and then out at the darkness. “There’s been no sign,” he said. “No balefires lit by the watchtowers.”
Giraldi said quietly, “One of my men saw something earlier. A scout went to look.”
Amara swallowed. “Has he come back?”
“Not yet, Lady,” Giraldi said, his expression worried. “Not yet.”
“Quiet,” said one of the legionares abruptly, a lanky young man with large ears. He leaned out, one hand lifting to his ear, and Cirrus stirred gently against Amara, telling her of the windcrafting the young man was working to listen.
“A horse,” he said. “A horseman.”
“Lights,” said Pirellus, and the command echoed down the walls. One by one, furylamps, brilliant and blue and cold lit along the walls, casting a glare out onto the predawn darkness beyond.
For a long moment, nothing moved on the snow. And then they could all hear it, the sound of galloping hoof beats. Seconds later, Bernard plunged into the light atop a hard-ridden grey, with foam on its withers and blood on its flanks, torn flaps of skin hanging from the terrified beast where something had raked at it. Even as Bernard rode closer, the horse bucked and screamed, and Amara could scarcely understand how the Steadholder kept his seat and kept the animal streaking toward Garrison.
“Open the gates!” Bernard shouted. “Let me in!”
Giraldi waited until the last possible moment before barking a command, and the gates were thrown open and then shut again behind the frantic horse, almost before it was through them. A groom came to take the animal, but it reared and screamed, panicked.
Bernard slid off the horse and swiftly away, but the frenzied animal slipped on the icy stones of the courtyard and collapsed onto its side, bleeding, wheezing. Amara could see the long rents in the beast’s flesh, where knives or claws had torn at it.
“Get ready,” Bernard panted, turning and swiftly mounting the ladder to the battlements above the gates. The Steadholder, his eyes wide, face pale said, “The Cursor was right. There’s a horde out there. And about ten thousand of them are coming right behind me.”
CHAPTER 36
Amara swept her gaze out over the ground before the walls, stark and white and cold in the blue-white furylights, and then looked back at Bernard. “Are you all right?”
The big Steadholder held up a hand to her, his breathing still heavy, and addressed Giraldi and Pirellus. “I couldn’t get close enough to tell much. Light troops, moving fast. A lot of them had bows, and I thought I saw some scaling poles.”
Giraldi grimaced and nodded once. “Which clans?”
“Wolf, Herdbane,” Bernard said. He leaned a shoulder against one of the battlements. Amara turned to a bucket of water hanging on a hook nearby and scooped out a drinking ladle, passing it to Bernard. He nodded to her and drank the ladle away. “Giraldi, I’ll need a sword, mail, arrows if you’ve any to spare.”
“No,” Pirellus said, stepping forward. “Giraldi, you shouldn’t have given this civilian a horse, much less let him be on the walls when we’re expecting an attack.”
Bernard squinted at the Knight Commander. “Young man, how long have you been in the Legions?”
Pirellus faced Bernard squarely. “What matters is that I am in them now, sir. You are not. It is the purpose of the Legions to protect the people of the Realm. Now get off the wall and let us do our job.”
“He stays,” Amara said, firmly. “Centurion, if there’s any mail that might fit me, have it brought as well.”
Giraldi turned and pointed a finger at one of the legionares on the wall. The man immediately leapt down a ladder and dashed into one of the guardhouses. Both Bernard and Pirellus turned to blink at Amara.
“No,” Bernard said.
“I think not.”
Both men frowned at one another.
Amara let out an impatient breath. “Commander, you have sent your Knights Aeris to bring reinforcements, and those that remain are flying patrol overhead. They’re under strength and may need whatever help they can get. The Steadholder is a furycrafter of considerable strength and has military experience. He is within his rights as a Citizen to stand in defense of his steadholt.”
Bernard scowled at Amara and said, “I don’t like it.”
Pirellus nodded. “I must agree, Countess. You presumably do not have military experience beyond personal defense. I don’t like it either.”
“Fortunately, I do not need either of you to like it.” Amara arched an eyebrow at Bernard as the legionare came running back up, both shoulders draped with coats of mail, one arm loaded down with weaponry. She took the mail he offered her, a long vest of interlocking rings, and took off her cloak to shove her arms into its padded undervest, and then into the mail itself. She started fumbling with the buckles, only to have Bernard push her fingers away and start cinching the buckles tight with practiced speed.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” he said.
“Because I’m a woman?” Amara pulled a cloak on over her shoulders again and buckled on a belt with a clip for her sword’s scabbard.
“Because you’re green. Unblooded. It’s got nothing to do with you being a woman.”