Darksoul. Anna Stephens

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       DURDIL

       Fourth moon, dawn, day thirty-one of the siege

       Gatehouse, western wall, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

      The sky was bruised with the coming of day, the defenders bruised from the previous night. The assaults had continued well after the sun had set, wave after wave, allowing those on the allure no respite. The bridgehead had formed, broken, been washed away, formed again further along, broken there, formed again, a bloody river carving its own path through the landscape.

      Durdil had spent the night on the wall, lit garish red and yellow with a myriad torches, as men fought and killed and died in the guttering light, the uniforms hard to tell apart in the gloom, men killing friends and comrades by mistake. The worst fucking sort of fighting, but eventually they’d pushed them back and secured the allure in the darkest part of the night.

      Hallos had, hours before, given up waiting for the wounded to be brought to the hospitals in Second Circle and climbed up on to the wallwalk with a dozen other healers, moving from First to Last Bastion and treating everyone he could, using his scalpel on those of the enemy who came too close.

      As the sky finally lightened, Durdil could hear the shouts and screams of the day’s first assault echoing brassy and blood-red across the city. The three trebuchets loosed, one each at the north and south stump walls, the third still – always – at the weak spot between Second Tower and Last Bastion. So far the stump walls were holding, but as they were more a deterrent to easy access than a formal defence, Durdil knew they’d be down soon enough. After that the enemy would be knocking at the harbour gates and things would be even more interesting.

      ‘They’re early,’ he muttered as the clamour rose louder and Hallos grunted, mired in blood from his boots to the crown of his shaven head, like something out of nightmare. Durdil didn’t think he looked much better.

      ‘Take a few hours off,’ Durdil said, ‘and preferably take a bath. You look worse than my soldiers.’

      ‘I’ll rest soon enough,’ Hallos grated and tipped a ladle of water from the butt over his head, gasping at the chill. He scrubbed his face and head. ‘Better?’

      ‘Not really, no,’ Durdil said. ‘Possibly worse.’

      They stood at the base of the wall with Major Renik, wincing at every scream. They’d held it through the night with Vaunt, and now Yarrow and Edris had the command. Supposedly, the night watch could stand down until dusk.

      ‘I should just—’ Durdil started as the clash of arms grew suddenly louder.

      Hallos and Renik both put hands on his shoulders. ‘Not a chance, Commander,’ Hallos rasped. ‘Eat, bathe, sleep. Physician’s orders.’

      He nodded and moved north, towards Second Tower and the distant Last Bastion, where Merle and his masons were arriving ready to prop the wall. They’d tried everything they could to force the trebuchets off the wall, to no avail. Now that there was only one loosing at the weak spot, Durdil and Merle had decided to risk the repairs.

      There weren’t any bodies down here, but whoever had taken them away had left the bloodstains behind. Men thrown to their deaths from the wallwalk above. Men who’d fallen accidentally. Men who’d been wounded or skewered through and then vanished over the guard wall into the depths below.

      He scuffed a rusty stain and eyed Merle’s huge outline; the mason had taken to lurking at the wall almost constantly, as though his presence alone could prevent a collapse.

      ‘Losses?’ Durdil asked Renik, and sipped at the cup a soldier had given him as he’d finally exited the gatehouse. Watered wine. Nectar.

      ‘Four hundred in the night, as of an hour ago. We estimate the enemy lost at least three times that, but they show no signs of slowing. Something’s stirred them up and they’ve got the numbers to rotate in so that there’s no let-up for us.’

      ‘Right, and what are we running out of?’ Merle had a lot of masons with him today; the sight of the big men wound his nerves a notch or two tighter.

      ‘Arrows. Bandages. Opium. Stones for the catapults, bolts for the stingers. Men. Hope.’

      ‘All right, Renik, that’s enough, go and get some sleep.’ Durdil held his eyes, no need to say anything. Renik blushed and then saluted, staggered away towards the slaughter district and its gate into Second Circle. The north barracks was just inside and Renik could be in a cot and asleep within five minutes. Durdil envied him.

      ‘Merle, my good man, give me good news,’ Durdil said, forcing cheer into his voice. Please, gods, give me good news.

      Merle looked like he’d been asked to tell lies in front of the temple godpool. ‘Well, we’re ready to go when you are, Commander. Have been for a week now. Stone’s here, chisels and men are here, mortar’s ready to be mixed. Just that trebuchet that’s the worry now. Any chance?’

       I can’t stop that trebuchet loosing for an hour, let alone the time you need, and if you think I can then you’re madder than a stoat down a fat man’s trousers.

      ‘Out of interest, if you completed the repairs while the treb kept loosing, what would happen?’ Durdil asked.

      Merle’s dusty eyebrows rose high. ‘Depends how far the bad stone stretches. If we have to chip deep into the wall, then it’ll be so weak she won’t withstand more than a few hours’ bombardment. Half a day at the most. And that’s with only the one engine loosing at it instead of all three.’

      ‘That bad? All right, and we need to make the repairs soon, do we?’

      Merle folded his massive arms. ‘You’re already gambling more than you’ve got to bet with, Commander. Them moving the two other trebs definitely bought us time, but that’s gone now. If we don’t make these repairs today there’s no point in us making them.’

      Durdil puffed out his cheeks and flapped his hands around. ‘How about if we prop the wall on the inside and do the works like that?’

      Merle coughed a laugh. ‘Prop the wall? Sir, it’s three times the height of a man. Prop it with what?’

      ‘Masts from the boats in the harbour,’ Hallos said when neither of them seemed to have an answer.

      Merle frowned up at the wall looming over them. ‘It’s a possibility, Commander, but I wouldn’t want to stake my reputation on them holding.’

       Just your life then. And all of ours too.

      ‘All right, we’re out of options,’ Durdil said heavily. ‘The fact is we can’t reach that siege engine and stop it. I’ll send five Hundreds to the harbour to protect the dockworkers unstepping the masts. Start work chipping out the stone now and prop it when they arrive. The treb will loose until nightfall, so pray the masts hold it up until then. Get the new stone in as soon as you can, before dark if possible. If you can, work through the night and with luck and СКАЧАТЬ