The alarm bell echoed from the mine and reverberated through the mountains. It was louder than I had thought possible—or, perhaps, the stillness of the night made it seem so. I shifted my axe to my left hand and took up a javelin in my right. My pulse in my ears was fast and strong.
The guards beside the tunnel exchanged a look before they dashed into the mine. One took the lantern with him, and the blackness of the night overtook the hillside. From the city, a distant clamor of voices answered the bell, and soon the tramp of booted feet came up the path.
There was a creak as Aysulu’s bow bent, and a soft hiss of Jin’s sword sliding from its sheath. The guards from the city had brought a torch, but it was still so dark, this far from the gates, and Aysulu’s first shot darted in front of the sergeant, missing him cleanly.
The men stopped, swords drawn. The torch darted back and forth as they looked for the source of the arrow. I willed my eyes not to watch it, to stay where it was dark. I saw the faint outline of the sergeant’s shield and threw my javelin.
I had intended to hit over the top of the shield, but he brought it up at the last possible moment. The javelin sank deep into the wood. I threw another, to the same effect, and saw the shield dip down toward the ground under the added weight.
“Quickly, now,” Jin whispered. Silently, he ran out from the brush, his sword in both hands.
I went after him. I was not so quiet, and one of the guards lifted his sword in time to turn aside my first blow. I knocked his weapon aside with the shaft of my axe. My second strike caught him in the belly, knocking him down. The light was not sufficient to tell if he still lived.
The sergeant’s blade rang against Jin’s. A second guard ran up to help his commander, and Jin was driven back, the glint of his sword moving in the torchlight all I could see of him. I parried a blow from the next man, and struck him across the face with the pommel. He stumbled backward, but he returned for another attack.
Another arrow whistled through the air. I heard it hit flesh, but did not see where it went. A second later, the sergeant fell to the ground, the fletching protruding from his neck.
Aysulu loosed two more arrows. One sailed past my head and into the shoulder of the man facing me. The other missed, disappearing into the darkness.
“It’s an ambush!” one of the remaining guards shouted.
He and his fellows backed away, back down the footpath, and when they were clear of Jin and me they broke into a run toward the city.
“More will be coming,” said Jin. “We need to leave.”
The alarm bell had stopped. The mountain stood in eerie silence.
Aysulu emerged from the brush, another arrow at the ready. “Do you think we should go in and find them?” she asked.
I was ready to enter the mine, but Jin held up a hand. I could just make out the gesture in the dark. “We will only come out to find more soldiers,” he said. “We need to hold off the reinforcements, so Reva and the others will not be trapped inside.”
And so we waited. The point of light that was the guardsmen’s torch wavered down the path and through the slums.
Another light made me turn my head back toward the mine. The tunnel was illuminated from deep within, a dim, reddish glow that brightened and grew as I watched. There was a faint sound, as if of a struggle, and I was about to rush in despite Jin’s warning when Reva emerged from the mine, holding a lantern aloft. Her clothing was torn and bloody, but she had no injury beneath it.
On either side of her walked Yanlong and Heishiro. Behind her stood Khalim, at the head of a column of miners. They poured from the tunnel, some two hundred of them, and it was not until we had left the footpath to the city and begun our trek up the mountain that I saw the end of the line.
I fell into line beside Khalim. I was about to speak to him, but something in his distant stare and the determined set of his jaw kept me silent. The miners looked at him, some with awe and some with only friendly recognition. Some, like Reva, carried the evidence of Khalim’s magic.
“Look, there!” Aysulu said, touching a hand to my arm.
I turned, and through the trees I saw lights gathering on the darkened plain. The fires illuminated the shape of dark banners—far more than we had seen when we had left the stronghold. The Tribe of the Lion and Wolf was gathering in their numbers. I imagined I could hear their horses trample the dusty earth.
There was no way to hide from them. Even if we had carried no lights, they would be able to see such a large company moving up the mountainside. It would take them perhaps a day to mount an assault, but they would be coming for us far before we could be ready.
Reva gathered us to meet when we arrived. I made sure that Khalim would be in attendance, and not forgotten in the medical tent.
“Our defenses are not as they should be,” Reva said. “Our palisade is strong, but the archery towers are not yet complete. We may outnumber the reavers, but we have fewer warriors. This will not be easy.”
“We may not need to fight all of them,” said Aysulu. “They require a strong leader to stay organized. Should Alaric fall, they will likely disperse, and infighting will prevent them from rallying for some time.”
Reva nodded. “Is there any way we can ready the miners to fight?”
Hualing of the Dragon Temple touched a hand to her chin in thought. “If there are those with sharp eyes, I could teach them to sling stones. The reavers are not heavily armored. It may be enough.”
“I will help you,” Aysulu said. “And I’ll see to the horses. We may need to ride out to face them.”
I remembered training with my father’s men when I was a lad, and the ways in which we took up our shields and moved as one. Perhaps I could teach the miners something similar.
“I will ready some footmen,” I said. “Anyone who is able to hold a shield and a weapon.”
Jin agreed to help me, and we dispersed for the evening. The miners were fed and given bedrolls and tents, and some gathered in the medical tent to be healed. I went to sleep well before Khalim’s work was finished, and woke for only a moment when he crawled in beside me some hours later.
In the morning, I let him sleep, and Jin and I set about our task. Thanks to Khalim, there were about a hundred miners able to fight. Aysulu and Hualing chose forty whose sight was the most keen and taught them to use a sling made of a strip of leather. They flung stones at a shield propped up against the palisade as I handed spears and shields from Phyreios’s armory to the other sixty.
These miners—mostly men, but there were women among them—were strong, but they had never held weapons before, much less fought in a formation. We taught them how to stand and how to hold their weapons, and they took to it well enough, but they were clumsy, knocking into each other and moving at different paces.
I grew frustrated, and even Jin’s collected stoicism was beginning to waver by midday. Time was running short. Had I taken on an impossible task?
I had been a child when I had first learned to fight. The other young boys and I practiced day after day until we had mastered the shield wall. There was a song that we sung to keep us in rhythm and to remind us of our form—it was in my mother tongue, and useless to the miners of Phyreios, but perhaps I could invent something similar that would help them.
We broke for a meal of bread and dried meat, and afterward I paced the length of the encampment until I had the words I sought. I returned to our makeshift training ground, picked up a shield and spear, and had the others form up beside me.
It was awkward, at first, and the miners were still unused to carrying weapons, but with the song to set their rhythm and with me to guide them, they were soon moving as one in a passable likeness of a shield wall.
“Our shields are as strong as the mountains,” they chanted,
“our shields are a roof under the sky.
Our spears are as tall as the trees,
Like the hands of the old gods they reach out.
We lean with the wind, but are not broken,
and like a tide we sweep over the land.”
By nightfall, I was satisfied that the miners would fight without breaking. They were confident and determined to repel the attack, and what skills they had learned, they knew well.
There were fires in the foothills now, around which three hundred shadowy men and their horses were gathered. Reva posted a watch on the wall. If they moved, we would know they were coming for us, whether we were prepared to face them or not.
I found Khalim in the medical tent. It was empty but for him, the injured miners now healed and sent away to do other tasks. I brought him his evening meal, and he accepted it gratefully. The skin under his dark eyes looked almost bruised, and he moved slowly, but for sudden, quick glances over his shoulder every so often as he ate.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He sighed. “Nothing. It’s strange—I feel like I’m being watched.”
“You should rest,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
He let me lead him to our tent. He slept, but fitfully, stirring in my arms throughout the night. A dread without name was taking shape in my mind.
Despite that, I drifted off. I woke before sunrise to the sound of shouting. The Tribe of the Lion and Wolf had packed up their camp and made the climb up the mountain, and a small contingent of riders led by Alaric had arrived at our gate.
I woke Khalim and gathered my weapons. I waited beside the gate with Jin and the miners we had been training. Their faces were grim, but determined. We were as ready as we could be.
“You are outnumbered,” Alaric called out. “You cannot win. Beg for mercy, and only the menfolk will be slain.”
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