he’ll lose.”
“Methinks he will lose anyway,” Mandor said.
“We can hope, I guess.”
Then, just as the upper rim of the sun rose above the mountains of Holy
Ulgo, a deep-toned horn sounded from the black iron pavilion that
headquartered Kal Torak of Mallorea, the siege engines all lashed
forward like striking snakes, and a veritable cloud of large rocks
arched upward to crash against the golden walls of Vo Mimbre.
The battle had begun.
There was a lot of confusion, of course–people shouting and cursing
and running for cover. A fair number of the rocks those engines were
hurling at us did fall inside the city, but that was only incidental,
and probably the result of poor aim. Torak wasn’t trying to kill
people with his engines; he was trying to batter down the walls. After
the first few volleys, his engineers adjusted their aim, and the whole
business settled down to the clash and rattle of large rocks striking
the outer walls of the city. It was noisy, but it didn’t really
accomplish much. The walls held.
As I’d anticipated, masses of assault troops began to move battering
rams, assault towers, and scaling ladders up into position just behind
the siege engines in preparation for an attack on the walls. It was
about mid-morning, after four hours or so of steady pounding, when I
turned to Wildantor.
“I think this might be a good time for you to give our Thullish friends
out there some idea of the range of your long bows I suggested.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
The fact that the Asturian archers were shooting from the top of a very
high wall added more distance to the range of their bows, and the
effect of their arrows devastated the Thulls manning the siege
engines.
The bombardment stopped immediately. The air between the engines and
the walls had been littered with rocks coming our way all morning.
Now it was filled with a glowing arch of slender arrows, all going the
other way. The survivors of those engine crews turned and fled back
into the very teeth of the assault forces massed behind them with the
arrows relentlessly following them. Kal Torak’s army flinched in on
itself and pulled back about a quarter of a mile. The insect-like
siege engines stood silent and unmoving with windrows of dead Thulls
heaped around them.
“What think est thou will be their next move, Ancient One?” Mandor
asked me.
“They’re going to have to retrieve those engines,” I speculated.
“They’re not going to be able to tear down these walls with their bare
hands.”
“My very thought,” he agreed. Then he raised that horn he always
carried at his side and blew a strident note on it.
The main gate crashed open and a couple thousand armored Mimbrate
knights mounted on huge horses charged out.
“What are you doing?” I almost screamed at him.
“The Angaraks have withdrawn in fearful confusion. Holy One,” he
explained in an infuriatingly reasonable tone of voice.
“Their engines stand unmanned and unguarded. I find those engines
irritating. Twere best, methinks, to seize this opportunity to destroy
them.”
I couldn’t fault his reasoning, but I wished that he’d told me about
his plan before he’d opened those gates. I was getting older, and my
veins weren’t as good as they used to be.
The Mimbrate knights were armed with battle-axes, and they swept out of
that gate like two great scythes, one cutting to the left and one to
the right. They didn’t exactly reduce the Angarak siege engines to
kindling wood, but they came close, then they circled back; pounded,
cheering, along the foot of the walls; reentered the city; and slammed
the gates behind them.
“Nice job, Mandor,” Wildantor complimented his friend.
Mandor smiled with becoming modesty.
Kal Torak, however, probably wasn’t smiling. His iron pavilion was at
least a mile out on the plain, but the sound of his raging came to us
quite clearly.
“What’ll he do now?” Wildantor asked me.
“Something foolish, most likely,” I replied.
“Kal Torak doesn’t think very clearly when he’s angry.”
With the loss of his siege engines, Torak’s chances of broaching the
walls of Vo Mimbre were reduced to almost zero. He really didn’t have
any choice but to try a frontal assault on the main gates at that
point. The battering rams crept forward, and the tall, swaying assault
towers came lumbering toward us. Hordes of Murgos, Nadraks, and
Malloreans ran at the walls carrying scaling ladders. The Asturian
archers picked them off in droves as they rushed forward, and when they
got closer, Mimbrates joined in with their shorter-limbed bows. When
the Angaraks reached the walls, we dropped boulders on them and poured
boiling pitch on their heads. Fire arrows into the pitch added
confusion and smoke.
It was a very expensive afternoon for Kal Torak of Mallorea, and his
demoralized army withdrew as a smoky sunset decorated the western
sky.
We’d survived the first day. Kal Torak had lost thousands of men, and
he was still outside the walls.
We dumped heaps of dried brush and stacks of cordwood off the top of
the walls, doused the resulting jumble with naptha, and set fire to
it.
The smoke was a little inconvenient, but that ring of fire surrounding
the city made sure that there wouldn’t be any surprises during the
night.
Then we all gathered in the throne room. King Aldorigen was almost
beside himself with glee.
“A most fruitful day!” he gloated.
“I salute thee, my Lord baron of Wildantor. Thine archers have saved
the day for us.”
“I thank your Grace,” Wildantor replied with a modest bow, “but much of
the credit should go to my friend Mandor here. All my men did was
drive the Angaraks away from their engines. Mandor sent the axe-men
out to hack the silly things to pieces.”
“There’s credit enough to go around, gentlemen.” It was Mergon, the
Tolnedran ambassador to the court at Vo Mimbre. He was a weedy-looking
little fellow, whose short stature proclaimed him to be a Borune, a
fact confirmed by his silver-trimmed blue mantle. Tolnedrans have an
elaborate color code to identify members of the various families.
“All in all, I’d say that it was a fairly successful day,” he
continued.
“It’s only the first day of the battle, Mergon,” I warned him.
“I’m not going to start gloating until we get through tomorrow.” I
looked around.
“Where’s Polgara?”
“She left just after sunset,” Belkira told me.
“She thought it might be a good idea to listen in on Torak and Zedar
this evening.”
“You can stand on the walls and listen to Torak, brother,” I said.
“He gets very loud when he’s angry. When Cherek and I went to Cthol
Mishrak and stole back the Orb, we could hear him from ten miles
off.”
Mergon’s face grew pained.
“Please don’t say things like that, Belgarath,”
he pleaded.
“You know it’s a violation of my religion to listen to that sort of
thing.”
I shrugged.
“Don’t listen, then.”
“What can we expect tomorrow?” Wildantor asked me.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I admitted.
“Why don’t we wait until Pol gets back with some solid information
rather than waste time on wild guesses.”
It was shortly after midnight when Polgara returned, and we gathered in
the throne room again to listen to her report.
“Zedar seems to have fallen out of favor,” she told us with a faint
smile.
“He was supposed to take the city yesterday, and Torak said any number
of highly uncomplimentary things to him about his failure.”
“It wasn’t entirely Zedar’s fault, Lady Polgara,” Mergon told her.
“We had a little bit to do with it, after all.”
“Torak’s not known for his forgiveness, your Excellency,” Beltira
said.
“He tends to hold grudges.”
“That he does,” Pol added.
“He made quite an issue of the fact that Zedar’s failed before. He
raised the point that it was Zedar’s failure in Morindland that made it
possible for father to retrieve the Orb, and that was almost three
thousand years ago.”
“That’s a very long time to hold a grudge,” Wildantor noted.
“Torak’s like that,” I said.
“Were you able to pick up any hints about what we should expect
tomorrow, Pol?”
“Torak didn’t say anything specific, father, but I think I can make a
few guesses. He told Zedar that he would be inside the walls by
nightfall, and Zedar’s supposed to use any means to accomplish that.”
“Sorcery?” Mandor guessed.
“Torak didn’t say it in so many words, but the implications were there.
I think we can expect Zedar to resort to his gifts to try to get
inside.
Tomorrow’s his last chance. If he fails again, Torak’ll probably
incinerate him.”
“I can face the prospect with a certain equanimity,” I said. Then I
looked at Beltira.
“Would it violate the rules of this particular EVENT if Zedar tries to
use sorcery?”
“That’s not too clear,” he replied.