The Lion's Crown (The Emberlyn Chronicles Book 1), page 19
They walked through Lanion, traveling along the wide boulevard that connected the palace with the gates at the western and eastern ends of the city. At last they came to a barricade made up of barrels, tables, carts and sacks of grain. “A fallback position,” William said as they climbed over it.
Beyond, Penny could see a line of men three or four deep standing behind another barricade. Past it, the city wall rose up two stories. There were two taller towers on either side of the gatehouse. Men and some women in civilian clothing were sitting or standing behind the battlement, each of them armed with a bow. A great number of spears also rested against the wall, their metal points shining in the early morning light.
Near the center of the barricade, behind the lines of soldiers, they spotted Faric and General Braedok. The two Lanosh greeted them as they approached. Neither said anything about Penny and Owen’s presence, and Penny was glad of it.
The men spoke for a moment in quiet tones before Braedok looked over at the two siblings. “Owen, will you stand by my side during the battle? I will need someone to protect me if I am called upon to counter any magic the enemy might use against us.”
Owen looked at Penny then nodded. “Yes, sir. I would be honored.”
Braedok turned his attention to Penny. “No, this won’t do,” he said.
Penny frowned. “Sir?”
“You don’t have a sword.” He called out to one of his soldiers, and the man disappeared into one of the buildings near the wall.
“I don’t know how to use one.”
“Have you ever swung an axe?”
“Yes.”
The soldier emerged carrying an extra sword and jogged up to the general. “Then think of it like that,” Braedok said, taking the weapon and handing it to her. “If you’re attacked, just swing with all your might. You’d be surprised how effective that can be.”
She drew the sword from its scabbard and thanked the general as she looked down at the blade. She put it away again then tied the belt around her waist.
Faric clasped Braedok on the shoulder then turned toward the others. “I will be on the wall,” he said, “directing the bowmen and watching for enemy magic. I… I will see you when this is over.” He grabbed Owen’s shoulder as he had with Braedok then looked at Penny. Without caring if it was appropriate or not, she hugged him. He smiled as he turned away and made his way to one of the towers rising up beside the gatehouse.
Penny looked across the river as William and Stephen rejoined her and Owen. They had walked up to the line to inspect the barricade. “Isn’t there another gate in the wall on the other side of the city?” she asked.
General Braedok nodded. “We have a small guard there, but our scouts say the Dourosh have not crossed over to the southern side of the river. I wouldn’t expect them to split their force. They want to focus everything here, where there is a direct route to the palace. If they can capture it, they can then sack the rest of the city at their leisure.”
Penny looked at the door Faric had passed through. “I want to go into the tower,” she said. “I want to see.”
William frowned but took her hand. He led her to the tower, with Owen and Sir Stephen following behind. They went in and up the staircase, but William stopped them at the first landing. “This will be good enough,” he said.
She looked past the soldier standing at the arrow loop and out across the fields. Less than a mile away, a great dust cloud billowed up, obscuring her view of the mountains at the end of the valley. Squinting, she could make out the horde of Dourosh below the cloud, moving with speed toward the wall.
The soldier said something she didn’t understand, but he held a brass cylinder out toward her. She took it and looked at it questioningly.
“It’s a spyglass,” William said. “Look through this end.”
She followed his instructions and let out a gasp as she pointed the device at the advancing army. “I can see them!” She shuddered as she began to distinguish individual faces. They were twisted in rage, and many of them were speaking or yelling what she could only guess were curses and insults. She saw eight or nine tall wooden ladders spaced out along the line, and at the center of the army was a thick, metal-capped tree trunk with a frame built around it by which it could be carried. A battering ram.
She dropped the spyglass from her eye and handed it to William. He, Stephen and Owen each had a turn with it before William took her by the hand again.
“They will be here soon. We must take our positions.”
A change had come over the soldiers as they returned to the barricade. Before, many of them had been lightly talking to one another, but now every man and woman was silent. A second later, she knew why. They could now hear the approaching army. It was a low rumble of boots and shouts and the clinking of armor.
Movement atop the wall drew her attention. She saw Faric with his hand upraised, and all along the battlement, arrows were nocked and bows were angled upward. Faric dropped his hand, and arrows flew out from the wall in a high arc. Seconds later, a roar of fury rose up from the Dourosh horde. Penny waited for the sound to die down, but it didn’t. It only grew louder.
“They’re coming,” Sir Stephen whispered.
Another volley of arrows was released, then Faric shouted a command, and each archer began firing at his or her own speed. Some arrows came back at them, hitting the battlement or sailing far above it to land near the barricade in the street.
General Braedok looked back at them and held out his hand. “Keep watch for errant arrows, but we haven’t too much to worry about. Apart from their scouts, the bow is not a favored weapon among the Dourosh.”
Sir Stephen looked skyward, frowning. “Aye, I imagine they prefer to batter in people’s heads.”
“You are not wrong,” Braedok said.
A boom reverberated down the street, and Penny let out an involuntary yell. William took her hand. “I want you to go now, Penny. The battering ram is at the gate.”
A shout rose up from atop the wall, and Penny squeezed William’s hand more tightly as some of the archers took up spears and began throwing them almost straight down. Another group pushed back a ladder that had been raised. On the other side of the gatehouse, two more ladders clattered against the wall and were also thrown back.
Penny held onto William’s hand, ignoring his request. “Without many bowmen,” she asked, “how can they hope to clear the wall long enough to climb up the ladders?”
A great plume of fire answered her question. It had risen up from somewhere beyond the wall, and the archers scattered. One man’s clothing caught, and his comrades rushed to pat out the flames. She spotted Faric making some elaborate motions with his hands. He then picked up a spear and threw it. It sailed away from him at an impossible speed, and he clapped his hands in triumph as it apparently hit its mark.
The gate shuddered again, and this time the sound was accompanied by the cracking of wood. William pulled Penny into an embrace. “Please… go now,” he whispered into her ear.
She nodded and parted from him. She retreated down the street and slowed as she reached the second barricade. It was being guarded by a handful of older men, and they helped her over the barrier. But there she stopped. She did not want to lose sight of William or her brother.
Three more times the battering ram hit the gate. During the assault, there were flashing lights and other strange happenings atop the wall, and she realized there was more than one magic user among the Dourosh. Faric did what he could, but she watched in distress as first a handful, then a dozen, then two dozen archers fell and lay still.
She looked back at the gate. The battering ram had not struck in over a minute. As she began to wonder if it had been destroyed, the tip of the ram crashed through the gate, buckling the crossbar. It stuck again, below the hole, and with that blow the crossbar finally gave way.
The doors of the gate swung inward slightly then were thrown open as dozens of Dourosh rushed forward. Some of the archers turned their attention to the gate, killing Dourosh as they passed through the threshold, but their efforts made little difference. The attackers impacted the barricade and met the blades of the soldiers.
Penny’s heart began to race as she watched the battle. The soldiers’ training and superior weaponry gave them a clear advantage. The first wave of Dourosh was slain with few casualties among the defenders, but this was a battle that would be won by might, not skill.
Another wave of Dourosh engaged with the soldiers, and more of the defenders fell this time. Any gaps were filled by the next rank, then the next.
Penny watched each rank grow thinner and thinner until at last the line was only two men deep. And William and Stephen were at that line. Through the flurry of activity she caught sight of the knights only occasionally, but each time she did she let out a silent prayer of thanks that they were still alive.
Behind the melee, General Braedok was standing still, occasionally moving his hands or shouting out a word or two. She could see no obvious effects of his spells but knew they had to be doing something. Owen stood beside the general, gripping his sword.
At last, what she knew must happen, happened. One side of the line collapsed, and the Dourosh leapt over the barricade. The defenders’ line angled back to protect their flank, and General Braedok gave up on his magical defenses and drew his sword.
The Dourosh reached him, and he stepped forward to protect Owen. He was quickly surrounded, but he fought with the same speed she had seen Faric display and knew there was magic behind his prowess. He felled a dozen Dourosh before one finally broke past him and charged at Owen. Owen lifted his sword and swung it, weakly deflecting the Dourosh’s own blade.
Penny screamed and closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch. Carried on the scream were prayers to whatever gods there might be that her brother would not be killed.
Suddenly, everything grew quiet. She wondered if she was dead, but as she opened her eyes, she saw that she wasn’t. In front of her, the battle was standing still. No, not quite still. She could see soldiers moving, she could see arrows lazily arcing toward the onrushing Dourosh, but their movement was a hundred, maybe a thousand times slower than it should have been.
Something large and radiating heat stepped up beside her. In the corner of her eye, she saw fur the color of dark ash and knew what it had to be.
She turned her head. The Ember Lion stood beside her, calmly regarding the scene before it. Below its grey fur she could see the glow of fire along its skin. Without thinking, she reached out her hand and stroked the edge of its mane. It turned and looked at her, but she could read no emotion in its burning eyes.
Then, in an instant, it was gone. She looked back toward the battle. It had resumed, but in the midst of the enemy line, she saw a gigantic, dark shape. The Ember Lion swung its great head in an arc, knocking three Dourosh to the side as its jaws closed on a fourth. The Dourosh gave up the fight and tried to flee, but cries of terror rose up from them as the lion released the man in its jaws and charged forward through the broken gate.
Atop the wall, the archers had fallen silent as they watched what was happening outside the walls. Penny jumped onto the top of the barricade and looked over the heads of the soldiers in front of her. She could just make out the lion as it cleared a wide path through the Dourosh, leaving behind three or four broken bodies with every bound. It soon disappeared from her view as the Dourosh fled in a panic. The archers recovered and began sending arrows into the retreating horde. Penny could see Faric among them, standing with his long knife in one hand, his other hand raised and curled into a fist.
She turned her attention back to the battle on the ground. The Dourosh still trapped inside the wall were in a panic and were falling by the dozen as the Lanosh regrouped and leaped over the barricade to finish them off. Penny cast about for any sign of William, Owen or Stephen. She saw her brother, still standing beside General Braedok, and let out the breath she’d been holding. But where were the knights? Where was William?
She jumped down from the barricade and ran forward, pausing only to briefly embrace her brother before wading into the mass of dead and wounded soldiers. The last of the Dourosh were pinned against the wall, still trying to make it to the gate.
Despite the closeness of the battle, she began looking for William and Stephen. She looked at each face only as long as she had to, but she abandoned her search when she saw a head rise up from the other side of the barricade. Sir Stephen looked at her. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
She ran to him and stopped as she saw who he was kneeling beside. William lay on the other side of the barricade. In the bottom of his breastplate was a dent with a narrow slit in the center of it. The ground around him was stained with blood.
Penny jumped over and fell to her knees beside him. Tears dropped onto his face as she bent down and kissed him then placed her hand against the breastplate, above the hole.
“It’s… is it….” She looked up at Sir Stephen.
“I do not know. If it pieced his stomach….”
Penny shook her head. “No. It didn’t. It couldn’t have.”
William feebly opened his eyes, but she wasn’t sure if he saw her or not. They closed again, and she fell back against the barricade, no longer able to support herself.
She stayed there as the last of the Dourosh were killed. The cries of battle had faded away to be replaced by the screams of the wounded and dying. She only looked up when she realized that William was being moved. He was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away. Stephen helped her up and supported her as they followed. William was taken into one of the houses that had been converted into a field hospital, and they stopped just outside, near a row of dead Lanosh who had succumbed to their wounds. Another dead soldier was brought out and laid at the end of the line.
“Best not go in yet,” Stephen said. “Whatever medicine these people employ, we should let them go about it without getting in the way.”
She nodded and sat down on a chair that had been brought out of the house to make room. She noticed for the first time that Owen was with them, and she accepted his hand as they waited. With Sir Stephen on one side of her and her brother on the other, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the horrifying sounds coming from within the hospital.
Chapter Thirty
Recovery
William survived the night. Penny had been let in to see him only once, but in the morning Faric arranged to have him moved to the palace. He was put in a room on the ground floor, on the same side of the palace as the queen’s chambers. Penny sat by his beside through another day and night before he finally stirred.
“Penny?” he said, opening his eyes.
She reached down and took his hand. “Yes. I’m here.”
“Did we win?”
She nodded and wiped at her eyes.
“Good. That’s good.”
He reached down and put his hand over his bandage. “Bad?”
“They… they say it’s not. They say it did not pierce your organs. Your armor was punctured, but it kept the blade from driving too deeply.”
“Your chances for recovery are good,” said a voice from behind her.
She looked up to see Faric standing in the doorway.
“Especially now that you’ve awakened,” Faric continued, walking over to the bed.
William nodded. “Can I eat?”
“Yes, of course. I will have a servant bring you something.”
“Thank you.”
Faric looked uneasily at Penny. “I know you do not wish to leave his side, but Anneli is awake. She’s been asking to see you for several hours.”
“Me? Why?”
Faric smiled. “I told her about the battle. About the Ember Lion.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Faric cocked an eyebrow. “Did you not tell me it appeared after you called for help? That it let you touch its fur?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t….” She frowned. “Do you mean it came because of me?”
Faric held his hand out toward her. “Come see Anneli. Sir William will be busy eating at any rate.”
She looked back at William. “Go,” he said. “I’ll be fine. But I want to hear about the Ember Lion when you return. I did not see it.”
Penny bent down to kiss him then followed Faric into the hall and waited as he gave an order to a servant. “He’ll be given food shortly,” he said as he continued walking.
They went up the stairs, and he brought her to Anneli’s door and opened it. She stepped in, and he closed it behind her, remaining outside. Penny looked toward the other door leading to the bedroom. It was ajar, and she could see the bed. She walked to the door and lightly knocked on it.
Anneli opened her eyes and held out her hand. “Come in, my dear.” Her voice was almost a whisper, and Penny sat in the chair by the bed and leaned down so she could hear the queen.
“How is Sir William?”
“They say he will recover. Your physicians… they heal with magic, don’t they? Where I come from, such a wound would have almost certainly been fatal.”
“They use a combination of magic and more traditional techniques, yes. I only wish I had been there. With my powers, I could have saved so many more.”
“You did save many,” Penny said. “You destroyed the Dourosh army inside the city. If that had not happened, we might all be dead now.”
Anneli smiled, but she did not seem persuaded. “So… is it true?” she asked.
“Is what?”
“You called to the lion, and the battle stood still?”
“Yes.”
Anneli’s smile widened. “Then it is time you had another history lesson. The only other one who could call on the Ember Lion for aid was Lanioc himself. His name means ‘lion’ in our language. Some even believe that he and the lion were spiritually linked; one soul in two beings. That, some say, was the source of his great power.”
“Do you believe this?”
Anneli shrugged. “He and the lion certainly had a close bond. Ever since Lanioc’s death, the lion has appeared but rarely, and never at anyone’s call.”
