Chapter seventy-eight

Ortia

Viola slept deeply and yet she still dreamed. She lay in the room that she had used since she was a young grown-up elf, safely curled up in her little bed, wrapped in her blankets, but still the dream assailed her. It seemed that she was safe nowhere.

She was in the middle of a dark wood and all around her woodsmen were chopping it down. One by one the tall ash trees were being felled. The fallen timber was being set alight. The foresters were strange though, each had a red tabard, emblazoned with yellow dragons. There was something odd about the dragons, though, something she couldn’t really put her finger on.

The central tree was beautiful. It was a white walnut tree and it was full of life. Lichens and mosses hung from its boughs, while its canopy was full of small animals scuttling around. I looked like it had been there for a long time, but they were going to burn it down anyway.  

She approached the tree tentatively. The foresters seemed unable to see her, but she was used to dream logic by now. She walked right up to the tree and then spent a while examining the canopy; behind her the chopping and burning were getting closer.

Impossibly green cows trotted up towards her, through the tabarded foresters.  One of cows approached Viola and butted  her back against the bole of the tree.

‘Touch it’ the cow commanded.

Viola put her hand down against the cool wood of the walnut tree. Without warning or pain she was transformed into a little hazel sapling, and where her hand had been there was a branch connecting the tree with the sapling. She could no longer move, but she could still see and hear.

‘We are ready Lady Viola’ said the green cow.

She awoke with a start. The blankets were on the floor, the bed seemed, for the first time, far too small. She got up and found a towel; her head hurt and she was dripping in sweat.

Viola knew that she was expected to act. But why should she?  And what was she meant to do? She ate a small slab of bread and then made her way out into the besieged city. She went to find Kath. They met in the street – Kath was coming to tell her about what was in the Secret History. Viola brushed aside all of her friend’s attempts to tell her anything. Instead, she commanded:

‘Take me outside and open up the wall’

Kath shook her head.

‘That’s madness. Why would we do that?’

‘I don’t know – it was another dream…’

‘Vee…’

Viola looked at her with pleading eyes.

‘I need your help…’

Kath smiled; it was a familiar smile to Viola and mildly irritating.

‘..again’

Viola strode off toward the western gate. She pulled her ragged jacket around her, against the biting wind. Kath was right behind her. 

***

They sneaked out of a side door in the western guard tower. They had with them about one hundred infantry archers and the same number of cavalry. Kath knew exactly where to go – a year before she had toured the Walls, at Viola’s request, looking for Dwarven Magic features.  At that point she had found an abundant Dwarven Magical energy below the ground but nothing left in the walls; where they had been broken down they were cracked and emptied. Where the wall had been rebuilt it was just in standard Visneorian masonry.

It didn’t take long for the encircling army to notice the small contingent close to the wall; but it did take time for them to organise enough troops to ensure that they could be crushed. By the time that had happened Kath and Viola were already at the conduit.   There was a brief, tense, standoff while the Tlaxaacan forces waited to see what the small Ortian group intended to do.

Kath breathed in deeply and tried to put the noise and proximity of the battle out of her mind. She placed her bag on the floor and took out her tools.  It was simple what she had been asked to do – she just had to open up a valve in one of the remaining original wall sections. All she had to do was take out a medium spanner and unscrew a tube and its gasket. In a minute it was done.

She turned to Viola.

‘I’ve opened up the wall. …’

‘But we have nothing to fill it with’ said Viola. She was mostly terrified but one small part of her was relieved

A voice came from behind them.

‘That is not true, lady Viola’

Through the battle fire and smoke came the envoys from Monurbis; protected on all sides by the Pale Flame knights. They had no idea why these citizens had to be protected, but they were sure of the need to obey a proconsular order.

The spindly Orbiverdi approached the Wall slowly, almost reverently. Their leader came forward.

‘We are ready Lady Viola’ she said.

Viola, startled by the sudden return of the dream words, put her hand back against the Wall. It immediately stuck there, as if it had been fixed there with the strongest glue.  Viola had no idea exactly what would happen next but she had a clear idea of the final outcome.‘

Citiizens – no!’ she shouted, ‘there must be another way…’

The Orbiverdi smiled and sang.  It was no proper song – it was just a perfect cadence: dominant then tonic; a major chord of C then a major chord of F. There was a moment’s stillness. Then they sang again. One by one they shattered as they sang, their bodies turning into green vapour.  Within a minute they had all gone, all two hundred off them, leaving behind nine balls of green smoke.

Viola stood with one hand against the wall – her fingers somehow interdigitating with the cold stone. Without thinking, she raised the other hand up, palm outwards, and one by one the green vapours poured into her. She could feel the power surging through her – she briefly wondered if this was what a tree felt like in spring, but she forced that thought away. The green energy was pumping into the wall; where it had been just stone and mortar it was now once again green magic. Ophia’s old stones were mending; and now the new stones – the ones that Marthian had had her masons build, were changing: each block was filling up with vessels, green capillaries that linked one stone to another. The whole intricate blood system of the city was being restored. 

A few minutes later the city stood as before – defended by the power of Dwarven Magic.  There was a short pause while the Tlaxacan leaders tried to make sense of what had happened – then they ordered the barrage to begin again. The arms of the ballistae were pulled back and the stones placed in their cradles. . But now it was different; the walls refused to be obliterated. Instead, every chunk of rock was absorbed easily, each one disappearing, like pebbles falling into green puddles.  On the parapets the archers cheered.

Finally their sorcerers called forth their lava monsters. They struggled their way out of ground, each one a burning creature of fire and rock. But even they – so effective against flesh and blood – battered against the walls impotently. One by one they fell back down form the walls, cooling and leaving nothing but a pile of rocks behind. It wasn’t long before the soecerers ran out of thaumic power.

Then even the catapults slowed, and then they stopped, leaving a moment of eerie silence.  Viola , who had been rendered senseless by the cathexis, staggered forward from the wall.

‘They all died’ she moaned, ‘they were all my compatriots and they died. Because of me’.

Kath stood in front of her with hands on her hips.

‘I know how you did that… or at least why…’ Kath murmured, ignoring her pain. Viola looked at her blankly.

‘How? Whatever it is, I want to stop it’

She looked down at her scarred fingers. They didn’t hurt at all.  

‘I can’t tell you now’ said Kath, aware once more that they were hemmed in by enemies ‘there’s no time. You’ll have to read it for yourself’

Viola smiled.

‘Time to fight’ she growled, ‘perhaps I won’t live long enough for it to matter’

A man, unknown to them, rode up out of the fracas, his heavy horse apparently tiptoeing through an obstacle course of bodies and debris. He was sandy haired and pale, as was one side of the banner draped across his saddle – a cream white flame against a cerise background. He turned his horse to reveal the imperial eagle on the other side.  It seemed he was a friend. 

‘Major Viola’ he said, ‘I am General Otto of Monurbis; follow me’

Viola stood silent for a moment, forcing herself to care what happened next. Hadn’t she been directly responsible for all those deaths? She saw no real point in carrying on. Then she caught sight of Potentilla and Dom, with another tall human that she didn’t recognise; they were riding with the Pale Flame Knights. I care about my friends she thought and that was enough to keep her going.

She unsheathed her sword with a shudder. The Tlaxacan infantry were now upon them, seeking some solace after their unexpected reverse. They had raced towards the little band of cavalry, who were now facing outwards in an attempt to protect Viola abd her colleagues.

There were too few of them. Inch by inch they were forced backwards, knights falling infrequently, but the timing hardly mattered.  

Potentilla jumped off her horse and stood with Viola and Kath. She took her bow from her shoulders and notched an arrow.

‘Ma’am’ she said, peering round at the gathering knot of enemies, ‘at your service. I’m sorry that I left you unguarded’

An arrow sped from her bow and struck a foot soldier full in the face. He fell. She repeated this several times, but every time someone fell two others took their place.

‘Welcome back, lieutenant’ said Viola, ‘but don’t protect me, protect Kath. Non-combatants first…’

‘I’ll look after her’ said Dom – he was already standing in front of Kath, He had no armour, but he held a huge two-handed sword. Viola knew that it would take a large number of blows to fell him as he was a hybrid, a mule, and so as tough as a scrawny bull.

All any of this could do, though, was to delay the inevitable. There were too many Tlaxacans and too few knights. One by one their horses were cut from under them, losing their normal advantage of free movement in the sea of soldiers. The noose pulled tighter and tighter.