That was another time, though. Kessia was gone, dead long years now, and Aleron as well. Elyon was only the gods knew where, Amron away defending the borders. And Vesryn…my sweet Vesryn…
She put old memories aside and strode into the room. At the table at which her family once gathered were assembled men strange to this city, standing around in strained debate as servants moved among them bearing trays of spiced beer and mulled wine well earned after their long cold march through the snow.
Lord Styron Strand stood at the heart of it, his son and heir Sir Gerald at his side, pockmarked and lumpy where his father was broad and strong. Amara was impressed by how powerfully built Lord Styron remained at his age. The man was into his mid-sixties but still looked like he could rip a man’s head off with one good grab and twist of those muscular hands. Gerald cut a pathetic figure beside him.
The rest of the lord’s captains and commanders stood attendance about him, lesser lords and knights all. Amara knew most of them from one feast or tourney or another, and even those she had never met had been introduced to her during the preceding days, as they marched with Lord Styron’s host along the High Way.
Senior among them was hook-nosed Lord Abel Darring, called Daring Darring or Darring the Daring by those who liked to overstate his courage and fearlessness. Young Lord Victor Manson had come in for the same treatment. They called him Victor the Valiant, Amara had heard, or sometimes Manly Manson. That last one was particularly eye-roll-inducing, though the man was stout and had a deep bass voice, so perhaps there was some truth to it. Sir Gervis Manson, Lord Victor’s younger brother by a year, was commonly referred to as Gervis the Unshrinking, and handsome Sir Robin Fallow had been granted the name Robin the Resilient for reasons Amara could only guess at. Either the lords of Lord Styron’s bleak hard lands were staunch and gallant to a man, or else they were all rather fond of over-inflating their precious egos. Amara Daecar thought a mix of the two was likely.
In Lord Styron Strand, however, the name ‘Strong’ was more than appropriate and had been won and proven during a lifetime of triumph and achievement. Physically imposing, with a build to match Amron, and the dominant, unyielding personality of a man like Brydon Amadar, Styron Strand was a formidable man. He wore a short, triangular beard on his wide chin, grey and peppered with the occasional coil of wiry brown, and kept his hair cut trim at the sides and back. The natural course of time had done that duty for him on the top, where he’d gone bald long ago. His eyes were deepset, greyish green in colour. From them a great web of deep wrinkles spread, cutting ruts in his leathery skin, and his forehead was a lattice of lines and old scars. His cloak had been removed and hung on a hook near the door, leaving him in his godsteel armour from head to heel. The steel showed old scars from battles gone by, enamelled at the breastplate in umber brown with pauldrons and vambraces in a dark yellow-gold, the colours of his house. Across his breast, a bare-chested man wrestled with a giant. The Strand house crest looked good on Lord Styron the Strong. Less so on Gerald, one had to admit.
The lord looked up as he saw her coming, waving the men around him to silence. They had been talking loudly as she entered, and included some of her own knights. Sir Penrose, Sir Talmer, Sir Ryger and Sir Montague were all present, as was Sir Gereth Daecar, Amron’s cousin and Warden of the North Downs. The remainder of Amara’s men would be down with the rest of Styron’s host, camping within the city walls.
“My lady,” Lord Styron said. “Be welcome.” His voice matched him, a strong clear tone.
This is my home, Amara thought. I welcome you, not the other way around. She only smiled as she approached.
“Get the lady a cup of wine,” Strand went on, as though it was his own castle. “Quickly. And for Sir Connor as well.”
The wine was warm, pleasantly spiced, just the tonic on a cold bitter night like this.
“How is your niece, my lady? Was the reunion all you’d hoped?”
Amara had another drink of wine before answering. “It was too short,” she said. “But elsewise, yes, a happy moment for me.”
“And her as well, I’m sure.”
Amara nodded. She would have time for a proper reunion later. Right now the concerned faces and strained eyes consumed her interest. “There is news, I’m told.”
“Yes.” Lord Styron walked along the top end of the table and around to Vandar, his men moving aside for him. He reached and tapped a steel finger at Blackfrost. “We’re here.”
“Yes. I am aware.”
The man smiled. Unlike Lord Bryon Amadar, Styron the Strong did smile occasionally. His finger slid just a little bit south, moving beyond the southern edge of the North Downs. “They’re here.”
“They?”
“The Agarathi. A great host. Some seventy, eighty thousand strong we are told. They’ll be here by dawn.”
Amara blinked up at the man. “Sorry…I must have misheard. I could have sworn you said there were sixty or eighty thousand Agarathi heading our way.”
Lord Styron nodded. “And dragons. Those numbers we don’t know. They have been melting the snow with their fire to speed the enemy’s advance, it would seem. Smart. Though it will tire and weaken them. Dragons don’t like the cold, my lady.”
She stared at him. “Are they to attack?” Her heart gave a thick beat, squeezing up her throat. She had only just found Lillia again. Now this? “Blackfrost is not built to withstand dragons, Styron. Let alone such a massive horde.”
“I have a strong host of my own,” the lord reminded her.
“One a quarter of the size,” Amara came back.
“A northman counts for five Agarathi,” declared Lord Victor Manson. Amara did not know where he came up with that number. “And in this weather? Ten.”
She blew out a sigh. “And a dragon counts for a thousand northmen. You see, Victor. I can spout nonsense too.” Her mind was whirling, leaping from one thing to the next. If they were so close… “The Twinfort,” she said, trying to swallow her heart back down. “They breached the Twinfort?” It was unthinkable. The Last Bastion was unbreakable, many believed. But the same fools said that about Dragon’s Bane too, and Varinar, and looked how that turned out.
“We must assume so,” Lord Styron said. His voice was calm.
Amara’s was not. “Then the men there….Lord Borrington’s host…”
“We don’t know what has become of them.”
“We can guess,” Amara said. “Randall is hardly likely to have opened his gates to let them pass unchallenged, Styron. And what of Amron?” She looked at Sir Gerald. He had been the one to tell them of Amron’s plans to march west to help defend the Twinfort, carrying with him the order for his father’s host to divert there as well. “You said Green Harbour was going to come under attack?”
The doughy, pock-faced knight licked his lips. “Yes, my lady. Lord Daecar…the king, he marched there to defend it. Whether he got there in time…”
“Clearly not,” Amara said. She had it figured out even if the dimwit was struggling to piece it together. “The Agarathi must have come in behind them,” she stated to the group. Some men nodded and gave agreeing murmurs. Lord Strand smiled. “They got the Fists opened from the rear.”
“You always had a piercing mind, Lady Amara,” Styron observed. “Yes, I think you’re right.” He waved a hand over the map, gesturing to King’s Point, then Green Harbour, then the Twinfort, and all the coastlands and woods in between, carved into the old pine. “Amron was always going to be in a race and it would seem he had been pipped to the post. As to his fate, and that of Lord Borrington, we can only speculate. But the signs are not good.”
No, Amara thought, agreeing. For all they knew this horde might once have been twice the size, only to lose half its strength defeating both Amron and Lord Randall and battling their way up the western gate. What remained was plenty large enough to deal with Styron’s twenty thousand swords, she feared. “How many men do you have, Gereth?” she asked the castellan, clutching at straws.
Gereth Daecar limped forward on his maimed men. “Scant few, my lady. Most of our strength was sent to the Twinfort. We can count on some two thousand fighting men in the city. If we send all the greybeards and green boys to the armoury, perhaps we can double that number.”
Amara had always loved how small Blackfrost felt compared to Varinar and Ilithor. Now she cursed its frail little size. “That won’t be enough. Not near enough to repel them.”
Lord Abel Darring gave her a curious frown. “I was not aware you were an expert in siege strategy, Lady Daecar.”
“I’m an expert in common sense. Now I’ll admit it’s been a while since I polished my skill at sums, but it would seem we’re a tad outnumbered.”
Lord Darring of the questionably daring disposition smiled at her. He had a hooked beak of a nose and a thin jaw, not your typical hero. His smile was ugly as well. “Lord Manson has the right of it,” he said. “Man for man, we are much the stronger. I would not pay too much attention to numbers, my lady, they can be terribly misleading. And we have these walls as well, and some stout towers to help defend us. Behind them we can outlast this horde and watch smiling as they freeze to death.”
