'Kikori! Now!' he yelled.
The waiting timber workers rose to their feet with a wordless roar of defiance. Rocks showered over the ramparts, hurled down into the mass of Senshi at the bases of the ladders. The first attacker to reach the top of a ladder cut at a Kikori, who ducked the whistling blade just in time. Moka thrust with his sword and the man screamed and plummeted off the ladder.
Elsewhere, Horace blocked another attacker's sword with his shield. Before he could retaliate, however, a wild-eyed Kikori spearman shoved him aside and buried his spear in the Senshi's shoulder. With a screech of pain, the man fell back onto his comrades, massed below.
A third ladder was sent toppling as four Kikori pikemen thrust their long poles against it, shoving it sideways until it crashed over. The Senshi closest to the top managed to spring onto the rampart. It was only a momentary respite. He barely regained his balance before a Kikori axe sheared through his armour. He toppled forward, crumpled over the rampart. Another defender shoved a spear handle under his shoulders and levered him back, sending him crashing back to the side he came from.
Grapnels were rattling against the walls now as Arisaka's men tried to clamber up hand over hand. Halt heard Reito and Moka, the two senior members of the Emperor's Senshi, shouting instructions to the defenders, and he knew the gist of their words. Let them get at least halfway up before you cut the ropes! They had determined this strategy the night before. A man falling from three or four metres stood a good chance of being injured – particularly if his comrades below were brandishing weapons.
At the midpoint of the wall, Halt saw one of Shigeru's bodyguard engaged in swordplay with an attacker who had made it over the wall. The still forms of two Kikori were at the attacker's feet. As Halt watched, an arrow slammed into the defender's chest and sent him staggering back off the rampart.
Before the attacking warrior could take advantage of his momentary respite, Selethen's tall form moved gracefully to the attack. His curved sabre cut into the gap between the Senshi's helmet and the neck piece of his armour.
Satisfied that the threat had been taken care of, Halt glanced around and saw another defender, a Kikori axeman this time, fall to the planks with an arrow in his chest. The Ranger searched the valley below the wall. Five Senshi, armed with the long, asymmetrical recurve bows favoured by the Nihon-Jan, had stopped some thirty metres behind their comrades and were picking off the defenders.
'Will!' he shouted. His apprentice had moved away to cut through a grapnel rope with his saxe knife. Now he looked, saw Halt's outstretched arm pointing to the group of archers and slipped the bow off his shoulder.
'You from the left. Me from the right!' shouted Halt and Will nodded. Once before, they had made the mistake of shooting at the same enemy in a battle. Now both longbows sang their dreadful song and the Senshi at either end of the line of archers staggered back, staring in horror at the arrows that had punched through their leather armour as if it weren't there. Before their comrades registered the fact that they were down, the Rangers dropped the next two within a heartbeat of each other. The fifth man searched in vain for the source of these deadly return shots. He had an arrow nocked, ready to draw and shoot as soon as he saw his opponent. He never managed it. Will's third arrow slammed into him. He dropped his bow, clutching at the terrible shaft, then fell and lay still.
Now a captain among the attackers, realising that the first blind, formless rush had failed, was taking stock of the situation. He saw the patched and sagging western section of the palisade and realised this was an opportunity. He gestured for two men to pick up a fallen ladder and follow him. Along the way, he gathered three more, equipped with grapnels and ropes. The hastily assembled assault party ran along the base of the wall, dodging rocks that showered down from above, to the weakened section. As they went, the captain rallied more men until at least thirty Senshi were following him. He gestured at the single-trunk ladder, then at the rotting beams of the wall.
'Use it as a battering ram! Smash through the wall!' he yelled. Half a dozen more men, suddenly seeing what he was about, joined the two Senshi wielding the log. They charged at the wall and, with one of them counting tempo, slammed it again and again into the brittle timbers of the palisade. Two of the old logs shattered and split, a third sagged away at the next strike of the ram. More rocks hailed down on them, but the defenders' aim was not as accurate as before. Panic, the captain thought. He screamed at the men with grapnels, pointing to the top of the palisade.
'Don't try to climb it! Pull it down!' he ordered. The grapnels whirred around, then sailed upwards, each one trailing a tail of rope behind it. One clattered back but two bit into the wood and held fast. Instantly, eight or nine men tailed onto the ropes and heaved and strained backwards. A three-metre section of the wooden parapet gave way and came crashing down in a cloud of dust and splinters. The men heaving on the rope staggered and fell but recovered quickly and cast again. The grapnel that had missed with the first cast was now solidly buried in the timber at the top of the wall. As the attackers further down the wall saw what was happening, more of them streamed to join the assault on the western section. The tree-trunk battering ram smashed into the wall again, tearing a rent between two of the upright timbers. More men joined in the assault, swinging the ram with even greater force.
Rocks and spears showered down on them now but the attackers were mad with battle rage and they knew that the section of wall was almost breached. They could see the defenders deserting the ruined wall, running in panic to escape before it came crashing down. Yelling their battle cries, they surged forward triumphantly as, under the combined force of the ram and four grapnel ropes, the wall finally gave way and a four-metre breach appeared. They clambered up over the shattered timbers, swarming through the gap.
The first men through stopped, bewildered, faced by a new, lower wall that enclosed them on three sides. But the press of their companions behind them forced them forward into the enclosed space. More and more of them poured in before they realised they were in a trap. Horrified, they saw a line of heads appear over the top of the new palisade – at least fifty of them. Then a storm of hurled rocks and spears broke over them – and this time, the defenders seemed to have regained their former accuracy.
'Go forward! Keep going forward!' The captain who had begun the assault was still alive. He brandished his sword now to lead the Senshi to a new attack. There was no way they could get back through the crowded, crammed breach. Their only hope was to scale this new, lower wall in front of them.
As they started forward, he heard a strange cracking, grinding noise from above. Looking up, he saw what appeared to be a section of the mountain wall suddenly tearing loose. A vast pile of rocks, earth and timber tumbled end over end down the wall, bouncing, smashing, crushing anything and everything in its path.
A log smashed the sword from his hand and a jagged rock slammed into him, driving him to his knees. As earth and rock thundered around him, he toppled sideways, knowing the assault had failed – then everything went dark.
The stunned attackers, with almost of a third of their number killed or injured in the trap devised by Halt and Selethen, slowly began to withdraw from the palisade, leaving their fallen comrades behind them. They straggled back down the valley in small groups, to face the wrath of their commander. General Todoki, leader of the advance party and one of Arisaka's most ardent supporters, watched in disbelief as his defeated men shambled out of the valley, bruised, bleeding and disheartened. He screamed at them, his rage making him lose all control and all sense of dignity. For the most part, they ignored him. He hadn't been there with them and they'd left over thirty comrades behind them, without any chance of decent burial.
That night, winter took care of that for them. The snow began in earnest, and by morning, there was nearly two metres piled up in the valley. The pure white carpet obliterated all sign of the previous day's carnage.
'How do you propose to get this thing down the cliffs to the lake?' Halt nudged the kayak dubiously with one toe. The narrow craft was nearly four metres long, with a light wooden framework covered by oiled linen, stretched to drumskin-tautness. He'd seen kayaks before. As Alyss had said, she had one herself at Castle Redmont, and this one looked similar, so far as he could remember. The Kikori had done an excellent job constructing it, under Alyss's watchful eye.
'Eiko solved that problem for us,' Evanlyn replied. 'The Kikori will lower it down by rope, doing it a stage at a time.'
They were standing in a half circle around the newly completed boat. Evanlyn and Alyss wore an air of excitement and proprietorial pride. Will and Horace looked extremely doubtful about the whole project. Halt, who had known about it for some time, was more or less resigned to it. But he wasn't enthusiastic.
'That's going to take a bit of handling,' he said. But Alyss put up a hand to stop him saying any more and knelt beside the kayak.
'Aha, that's the beauty of this design. Watch,' she said. She worked two wooden retaining pins out of their sockets and removed one of the four bulkhead sections that created the cross-section profile of the kayak. The ribs that ran the length of the boat collapsed inwards slightly, and the oilskin covering lost some of its tension. She repeated the action with the other three formers and within minutes, the kayak was nothing more than a bundle of light ribs, frames and oilskin. She rapidly gathered them together, then used the oilskin to wrap the ribs into a tight bundle. She stood back from the result – a narrow bundle of long, light wooden stakes.
'There!' she announced. 'We simply collapse it so that it's a much more manageable bundle. Tie a rope round one end and we lower it down the cliffs, hanging vertically.'
Will stepped forward and eyed the narrow bundle critically. When it was assembled, it had looked like a boat. But now the frailty of the design was far more evident. It was nothing more than sticks and cloth.
'Will it float?' he asked doubtfully and Alyss smiled at him. She knew the reason behind his lack of enthusiasm and she couldn't help being a little pleased by it. By the same token, she wasn't going to allow it to go too far. Will might worry about her, and she knew he loved her. But that didn't mean he owned her or could dictate what she might or might not do.
'Of course it will float,' she told him. 'And if it doesn't, we'll just have to come back up the cliffs.'
'Well…I don't like it,' Will said.
Horace echoed the sentiment. 'Neither do I.'
'Your dislike for the project will be duly noted,' Evanlyn told them coolly.
'And ignored,' Alyss added. The two girls exchanged a quick smile.
Will opened his mouth to speak further but Selethen stepped in to prevent any unfortunate statements.
'Personally, I think it's a good plan,' he said smoothly. 'What's more, I'll sleep soundly through the winter knowing that there is the prospect of a relieving force arriving in the spring.'
In Arrida, the women of the desert tribes lived in a hostile environment and took their share of dangerous tasks. They often ranged far into the desert, hunting for food and fighting off the predators that attacked their herd animals. He knew these two girls and was confident they had the ability and the courage to carry out the mission they had taken on. And his comment about feeling a sense of comfort at the prospect of a relieving force was the truth. Selethen, like the others, knew that they could not simply occupy this defensive position indefinitely once the snows melted. Arisaka would eventually be victorious, by dint of his overwhelming numbers.
'Yeah…well…maybe,' Horace said. He was a little surprised that Selethen was supporting the girls. Will looked at Halt.
'What do you think about this, Halt? Are you really going to let them go?'
At the words 'let them' both girls bristled with indignation. But Halt held up a hand and they held their peace for the moment.
'I can't say I'm happy about it,' he began and Will nodded knowingly, glad to see that his mentor was in agreement with him and Horace. But Halt's next words wiped out any sense of satisfaction he might be feeling.
'But I wasn't happy in Arrida when you went off searching for Tug,' he said. His gaze moved around to include Horace. 'Nor when I heard you two had assaulted Castle Macindaw with just thirty men.'
'Thirty-three,' mumbled Horace. He was beginning to see where Halt was heading.
The Ranger gave him a withering look. 'Oh, pardon me…Thirty-three men. That makes a lot of difference. Look, we live in a dangerous world, and both Evanlyn and Alyss have decided they want to do more than sit by and watch while we menfolk take care of them.
'They don't want to be spectators. They're courageous and imaginative and adventurous. That's why you like them. They fit into the world you've chosen for yourselves. If you'd wanted a pair of silly, primping maidens who are good for nothing but gossip and needlepoint, there are plenty of those around. But I doubt they'd interest you.'
He paused, watching to see if his words had sunk in. Slowly, Will and Horace began to nod agreement with what he'd said. Halt himself had come to terms with all these points many years ago, when he had fallen in love with Lady Pauline. He'd had to accept that she would fulfil the duties of a Courier – which would inevitably take her into harm's way. And he had to trust in her ability to look after herself – as she had learned to trust in his.
'Now, what Selethen says is true. We are going to need help in the spring. We can't simply sit behind the palisade and hope to hold Arisaka off forever. And the only available source of that help lies across the lake, with the Hasanu. Is that right, Lord Shigeru?'
The Emperor nodded. He had been following the discussion with great interest. The evenings he'd spent talking with Evanlyn had shown her to be a young lady of remarkable courage and determination. And she was highly intelligent and articulate – qualities that would be necessary if she were going to carry his request for help to Lord Nimatsu.
'Lord Nimatsu has the only viable force that can help us defeat Arisaka,' he said.
'Then it makes sense for Evanlyn and Alyss to enlist his aid,' Halt finished, eyeing the two young men.