Breathless and panting, Bowman arrived to stand beside Druss, Rek and Serbitar. The outlaws spread out along the wall.
‘Shoot when you’re ready,’ said Druss. The green-clad outlaw swept a slender hand through his blond hair and grinned.
‘We can hardly miss,’ he said. ‘But it will be like spitting into a storm.’
‘Every little helps,’ said the axeman.
Bowman strung his yew bow and notched an arrow. To the left and right of him, the move was repeated a thousand times. Bowman sighted on a leading warrior and released the string, the shaft slashing the air to slice and hammer through the man’s leather jerkin. As he stumbled and fell, a ragged cheer went up along the wall. A thousand arrows followed, then another thousand and another. Many Nadir warriors carried shields, but many did not. Hundreds fell as the arrows struck, tripping the men behind. But still the black mass kept coming, trampling the wounded and dead beneath them.
Armed with his Vagrian bow, Rek loosed shaft after shaft into the horde, his lack of skill an irrelevant factor since, as Bowman had said, one could hardly miss. The arrows were a barbed mockery of the clumsy ballistae attack so recently used against them. But it was taking a heavier toll.
The Nadir were close enough now for individual faces to be clearly seen. Rough looking men, thought Rek, but tough and hardy – raised to war and blood. Many of them lacked armour, others wore mail-shirts, but most were clad in black breastplates of lacquered leather and wood. Their screaming battle cries were almost bestial; no words could be heard, only their hate could be felt. Like the angry scream of some vast, inchoate monster, thought Rek as the familiar sensation of fear gripped his belly.
Serbitar raised his helm visor and leaned over the battlements, ignoring the few arrows that flashed up and by him.
‘The ladder men have reached the walls,’ he said, softly.
Druss turned to Rek. ‘The last time I stood beside an Earl of Dros Delnoch in battle, we carved a legend,’ he said.
‘The odd thing about sagas,’ offered Rek, ‘is that they very rarely mention dry mouths and full bladders.’
A grappling hook whistled over the wall.
‘Any last words of advice?’ asked Rek, dragging his sword free from its scabbard.
Druss grinned, drawing Snaga. ‘Live!’ he said.
More grappling irons rattled over the walls, jerking taut instantly and biting into the stone as hundreds of hands applied pressure below. Frantically the defenders lashed razor-edged blades at the vine ropes until Druss bellowed at the men to stop.
‘Wait until they’re climbing!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t kill ropes – kill men!’
Serbitar, a student of war since he was thirteen, watched the progress of the siege towers with detached fascination. The obvious idea was to get as many men on the walls as possible by using ropes and ladders then to pull in the towers. The carnage below among the men pulling the tower ropes was horrific as Bowman and his archers peppered them with shafts. But more always rushed in to fill the places of the dead and dying.
On the walls, despite the frenzied slashing of ropes, the sheer numbers of hooks and throwers had enabled the first Nadir warriors to gain the battlements.
Hogun, with five thousand men on Musif, Wall Two, was sorely tempted to forget his orders and race to the aid of Wall One. But he was a professional soldier, reared on obedience, and he stood his ground.
*
Tsubodai waited at the bottom of the rope as the tribesmen slowly climbed above him. A body hurtled by him to splinter on the jagged rocks and blood splashed his lacquered leather breastplate. He grinned, recognising the twisted features of Nestzan, the race runner.
‘He had it coming to him,’ he said to the man beside him. ‘Now, if he’d been able to run as fast as he fell, I wouldn’t have lost so much money!’
Above them the climbing men had stopped now, as the Drenai defenders forced the attackers back towards the ramparts. Tsubodai looked up at the man ahead of him.
‘How long are you going to hang there, Nakrash?’ he called. The man twisted his body and looked down.