“The rest of the Lealfast have arrived,” Axis said, grabbing Ishbel by the upper arm and pushing her forward as fast as he could. “Bingaleal and his fighters. Twenty thousand at least, unless he lost a few thousand somewhere. Shit, Ishbel. Shit. We can’t withstand the kind of barrage they can direct down on us. We have to get inside. Now”
“But there are still many thousands of Isembaardians waiting to cross into Elcho Falling, Axis! We can’t abandon them!”
“We must,” Axis said. “We can’t save them, Ishbel.” He was pushing her forward now, despite her protests, and shouting orders at the Emerald Guardsmen to cover them.
“I’ll get you inside, Ishbel,” Axis said, “then I’ll do what I can for those remaining. You can’t be lost.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Axis. We can’t lose you, either!”
“For all the gods’ sakes, woman,” Axis muttered, “get moving!”
He pushed her bodily through the men in front of them, not caring who he shouldered aside.
The next moment they were cringing close to the ground, pushed there by their Emerald Guard escort as a torrent of arrows stormed down. Axis tried to move, to say something, but then two of the guardsmen collapsed on top of him, dead, and Axis had to struggle to try to dislodge their weight.
Stars! They were still eighty or ninety paces from the entrance to Elcho Falling!
Men were screaming, shouting, dying all about them.
Then, suddenly, stunningly, silence.
Axis dared to push the dead guardsman on top of him to one side and look around, staring in wonder.
All the shields of the soldiers on the causeway, and of those waiting on the shores of the lake, had wondrously lifted into the air and were welded together, with what looked like bands of glowing turquoise, to form an impenetrable canopy above the Isembaardians.
Axis struggled up on one elbow, as did most of the men around him who were left alive.
“Maxel,” Ishbel said, sitting up.
“What?” Axis said. “How?”
“This is Maxel’s doing,” said Ishbel. “He is back from the Twisted Tower.”
“ This,” said an Emerald Guardsman close by, now rising to his feet, “is a memory from the Veins. Lord Maximilian once did something similar there.”
“ This,” said Maximilian, stepping through the scores of men now rising to their feet, “is an adaptation of a trick that Drava, Lord of Dreams, taught me a long, long time ago. Quick now, Axis, look lively. I cannot hold this forever and it will take a good hour to get the rest of the Isembaardians inside.”
Axis looked at Maximilian, quelling the urge to ask a multitude of questions, then gave a nod and moved back down the causeway, urging men forward. They could move much faster now that they did not have to try and shelter from arrows at the same time, and within minutes, once the injured and dead had been carried inside Elcho Falling, Isembaardians were trotting six abreast along the causeway.
Insharah appeared by Axis’ side, and together they helped the remaining Isembaardians to reach Elcho Falling, with no further losses.
The final few score men had brought horses with them, dragging the terrified animals by the reins along the causeway. They must have cut the horse lines before they’d left the encampment, because the mass of Isembaardian horses from the camp followed their companions into the tunnelled archway, forcing both Axis and Insharah to flatten themselves against the walls to avoid the stampede.
“Are you sure Elcho Falling can take all these?” Insharah said.
“Elcho Falling is an amazing place,” Axis replied.
Chapter 9
Elcho Falling
At the sound of Elcho Falling’s massive portal closing behind him, Axis sank down on his haunches, resting his back against one of the giant columns of the vast ground floor chamber. He was exhausted. He had not slept in almost two days, he had been driven to the edge both physically and emotionally, and he simply had no strength left with which to think, or plan, or solve.
And yet he had to do all three.
Somehow.
There were men and horses milling about, but they were gradually being sorted and redirected by Emerald Guardsmen, some of Georgdi’s Outlander men and by the citadel’s silent servants.
Axis closed his eyes, wondering if he could snatch just a few minutes sleep before he had to attend to that one thing that had been nibbling away at the back of his mind all day.
Inardle.
“Axis?”
He opened his eyes wearily. Maximilian and Ishbel stood before him, Ishbel leaning on her husband’s arm for support.
“Come up to the command chamber,” Maximilian said. “We need to talk.” He offered his free hand and Axis sighed, took it, and allowed Maximilian to pull him to his feet.
They filed into the command chamber where, so it felt to Axis, this current crisis had begun over a thousand years ago — and he’d been awake for all of it. Was it only a day since Maximilian had been murdered; only a day since he’d thought Inardle trustworthy, since he’d thought he’d loved her?
She was sitting in here now, on a stool against a far wall, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes downcast.
The perfect pose for the repentant traitoress.
Axis couldn’t look at her. He averted his face, choosing to move to a chair as far distant from her as possible.
The Outlander general Georgdi was here, too, as was Insharah, Egalion, StarDrifter, StarHeaven and a dark, handsome man Axis did not recognise but who he supposed must be somehow associated with the Isembaardians, perhaps a commander under Insharah.
He didn’t care, he was too fatigued. Axis exchanged a brief word with StarHeaven and then his father, then slumped down in the chair.
Maximilian and Ishbel sat down where they had a clear view of everyone else, and Maximilian gestured at those few still standing to take seats as well.
“We are safe enough for the moment,” Maximilian said, “although I cannot guarantee the morrow.” He gave a brief smile. “The moment shall have to do for now. There is something I need to tell you, but first, perhaps, we need to review what has happened here. Georgdi, Egalion, how stands security within Elcho Falling?”
“Good, so far as I can tell,” Georgdi said. “But who is to know what other traitors lurk in the shadows?” He glanced at Inardle as he spoke.
“Everyone who has entered Elcho Falling has been assigned quarters,” Egalion said. “Garth and Zeboath are attending the wounded as best they can, but many more will die from their wounds.”
“For your part this night,” Maximilian said, “I need to thank you, Egalion, and your guardsmen. We may all have been lost, had it not been for you.”
Egalion nodded, like so many others, too tired to waste energy on unnecessary words.
“What other threats lurk, Axis?” Maximilian said.
“The Skraelings are coming,” Axis said, rubbing at his eyes with one hand, “and they will be here as soon as they may. Eleanon has been reinforced with Bingaleal and his twenty thousand.” Axis sighed, thinking. “Kezial and some few score thousand Isembaardian soldiers are roaming the Outlands somewhere, but who knows if they are a threat or if they’ll be overwhelmed by the approaching tide of the Skraelings. But who am I to talk of what threats and treacheries we face? For that we have Inardle to ask.”
He looked at her then and she raised her eyes and caught his gaze. Inardle’s eyes were distraught, and Axis thought her a most talented actor. He hoped everyone else in the chamber saw through to the treacherous soul that she tried to hide.
“I will speak here,” Ishbel said. “Inardle is no traitor, not to Elcho Falling. If she had been, she would have been spattered with the blood — the blood of murdered Maxel — that I cast from the Goblet of the Frogs. It did not stick to her. She did not betray Elcho Falling.”
Axis banged his fist on the table, his exhaustion forgotten. “What? Have you not seen the murdered bodies of the Strike Force, Ishbel? Did you not see Isembaardian after Isembaardian cast down into death from the causeway? Could you walk the few paces to the window and look out on the waters which surround us and not see the corpses floating so thick the water is hid? Is Inardle not responsible for all —”
“No,” Ishbel said.
“She knew this was going to happen!” Axis shouted as he rose to his feet, now joined by StarDrifter, who had leapt to his feet also, sending Inardle a look of implacable hatred as he did so.
“She knew it,” Axis said, “and she said nothing.”
“She was torn by twin loyalties,” Ishbel said. “She was —”
“Sent here to betray us,” StarDrifter said, “and this she did perfectly.”
“Sit down, StarDrifter,” Maximilian said, his tone moderate. “Both of you. And Axis, take a deep breath and calm yourself. I understand your anger, everyone here does —”