Mia looked at the approaching army. Down to the little sword in her hand.
“Well, shit,” she sighed.
“Archers, lay down fire on those incoming towers! I need six of you ready at the gate for that battering ram, the rest of you on the walls to repel their troops! Two men to a station, lock your shields and keep your backs to each other, clear?”
Mia raised an eyebrow, looked about to see who was shouting.
It was Sidonius. But not the smart-mouthed, lecherous Sid she’d kicked in the bollocks and punched in the jaw. This man was fierce as a whitedrake, his voice booming, radiating an aura of command that brooked no dissent.
“O, aye?” someone yelled. “And who the fuck are you?”
“Aye,” Mia murmured. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the bastard who’s going to save your miserable lives!” Sid bellowed. “Unless one of you pathetic sheepfuckers have a better plan? Now see to your swords and send these bastards to the ’byss where they belong!”
Mia stared a moment longer, eyebrow raised. But seeing Sid was in no mood to argue, and being counted among the pathetic sheepfuckers with no better plan, she aimed her bow at the incoming towers. Matteo nocked an arrow beside her, speaking from the corner of his mouth as he smirked at Sid.
“Well, that was unexpect—”
The ballista bolt hit him like an anvil. Blood spattered Mia’s face as Matteo was flung off the tower with a “whufff,” toppling headfirst into the sand below. The boy hit the ground with a sickening crunch, two feet of steel and wood in his chest, neck twisted the entirely wrong way around.
“’Byss and blood,” Mia breathed.
A shattering boom shook the castle as one of the catapults flung a barrel of burning pitch. The projectile shattered on the wall, liquid fire raining down on the men and women inside. The crowd roared approval as the second catapult fired, the barrel smashing into the facade and setting the wooden gate ablaze. Men fell from the battlements covered in flaming oil, screaming as they tried to douse themselves on the sand. Mia and Sidonius ducked low, looking at each other with wide eyes.
“Four fucking Daughters,” the big man breathed.
“Suggestions, General?” Mia asked.
“Archers! Have at those towers!”
Mia and a few of her fellows rose up from cover, unleashed a volley into the approaching siege towers. Several of the gold troops fell, the crowd howling as a second volley dropped a handful more. Black smoke billowed from the rising flames, clawing at Mia’s eyes and throat as she fired again.
“Battering ram!” she shouted. “Coming hard.”
“Brace the doors!” Sidonius roared.
Half a dozen of the Golds rushed forward between the troop towers, the battering ram between them. Mia fired again, but the team were protected by a cover of thick hide. The walls shook as they hit the front gate, shaking further as another barrel of blazing oil hit one of the keep’s rear towers to the crowd’s delight. The explosion bloomed, bright and fierce, immolating another three Reds on the walls. They fell screaming, a fourth among them tumbling back with a ballista bolt through her chest.
“Those siege weapons are killing us!” Mia shouted.
“Well, we’ve little to throw at them but harsh language!” Sidonius roared. “The Vaanians lost the siege of Blackbridge, little Crow! These dice are rigged!”
The gate boomed again as the ram struck home. Mia twisted up from cover, firing through the rolling smoke and putting an arrow through the foot of one of the battering team. It was all she could see of them under that blasted hide, but it had the desired effect; the man dropped, howling, and Mia ducked a ballista bolt as she loosed another shot, her arrow striking him clean through the throat.
Another barrel exploded, the crowd now howling drunk with fury. The castle was ablaze, the gate coming off its hinges. The first siege tower struck the battlements, spilling half a dozen men onto the defenses with bloodthirsty cries. Sidonius charged along the wall and put his sword through a man’s belly with a roar. Mia rose without a sound, reaching out to one Gold’s shadow and fixing him in place, battering aside another man’s sword and slamming him off the wall with her shield before burying her blade in the first man’s chest. Blood spattered, warm and copperish on her lips. She’d wondered how she might use her gifts without the crowd getting wise, but in all the chaos and smoke and flame, nobody could see a thing of her shadowerking.
The gate shuddered again, the wood splitting. One more good thrust and they’d be home. Another Red sailed off the battlement with a ballista bolt through his belly, another barrel burst on the ground in front of the keep, spraying the walls with burning oil. It was all well and good to stay here and defend the walls—Mia cut down another Gold, slicing his belly wide open and spilling his guts across the deck as he fell screaming—but those catapults would eventually set the whole place ablaze.
Conquer your fear, and you can conquer the world.
She thought back to her lessons in the Hall of Masks with Shahiid Aalea. The assassin inside her rising to the fore. She could swing a sword with the best of them, she knew that true, but the advantage she truly had over the people fighting and dying around her was her training in the Red Church. Her wits. Her guile.
Don’t think like a gladiatii. Think like a Blade.
She looked at the faces around her. The face of the man she’d just killed, sealed inside his helm. And tearing the helm off the dead Gold’s head, she shoved her hand into his sundered guts, and pulled out a great, steaming handful. Pulling off her own headgear, she slammed on the golden-crested helmet and shouted to Sidonius.
“Don’t let them shoot me on the way back!”
Mia smeared blood down her neck and chest, slapped her handful of ruptured intestines against her belly, and taking a deep breath, dropped off the wall. She hit the sand outside the keep with a grunt, wobbled and fell onto her side. Black smoke boiled all around her, timbers breaking and folk roaring as the gate shattered. A boom echoed across the arena as another barrel exploded against the wall, Mia curling up tight to shield herself from the flaming globules of oil.
She rose to her feet, holding her fistful of torn guts against her own stomach. And with her sword dangling from her other hand, she staggered toward the first catapult.
The crowd paid her little mind—from the look of her wound across the arena, she was a dead girl walking. The crew on the catapult paid no heed either; her golden helm marked her as one of their own, but each of them was fighting to save their own skins. And so, nobody ran to help her or stop her as she staggered across the sand, blood and guts drenching her front, dripping at her feet.