webcrawl/APGTE/Book-3/tex/Ch-066.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-41-turning-point}{%
\section{Chapter 41: Turning Point}\label{chapter-41-turning-point}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Better behind a Tyrant than before them.''}

-- Praesi saying
\end{quote}

The right to lead the vanguard, as always, belonged to Nauk.

The orc legate was not as clever as Juniper or careful as Hune, but when
the time came to hammer in a door there was a reason he was the man we
sent for. More than any other orc I knew, Nauk had no \emph{give} in
him. He was stubborn and aggressive and his men loved him -- even the
humans, which was no given for a greenskin commander. In Arcadia he'd
lost three fourths of his jesha to Summer regulars and the Immortals,
and his men had stood their ground without flinching. How many hosts in
all of Calernia would have done that, in the face of those kind of
casualties? The Battle of Four Armies and One had effectively ended his
command and we'd had to repurpose another jesha for him to lead, but
he'd taken the reins swiftly. It helped that half the two thousand he
now led had been under his nominal authority before I'd taken him north
to Laure. Still, if it had been another officer I would have been wary
of making them the tip of the spear when their forces were still
unblooded and fresh to his command. Not with Nauk, though. What Summer
did not kill today would become my vanguard in the wars to come.

My sword hissed against the sheath as it was bared, Hakram hefting his
axe at my side. It would be the two of us, in the beginning, without the
Gallowborne. The kind of fights I'd be seeking were not ones you took
mortals into, however well-trained. Behind us the legionaries of he
Fifteenth advanced in tight ranks, shields hefted. Heavies in the front
with sappers behind them, about to find out if the tactics Juniper had
crafted to deal with fae were effective or not. Our engines had
demolished us a clear path to the walls and split the Summer regulars in
two, but it would have been madness to assault the ramparts without a
solid beachhead. That meant getting in the thick of it, for good or
ill.~The enemy was not slow in giving answer. Darkness had fallen, but
for a heartbeat it felt as if day had come again: across the city flames
bloomed and arrows rose into the sky. I was familiar with that trick by
now, the fire-driven arrows that detonated upon impact. Watching them
tear through the Gallowborne had made sure I would never forget.

Masego's third and last ward activated with a sound like a massive
siphon. The arrows flew unabated, but the flames were whisked out of
existence. Fire suppression ward. It would cripple our mages as well,
prevent them from using fireballs, but Summer lost far more to this than
we did. That Hierophant had triggered this one meant the legions at our
back had lost their best defence, and all I could do was pray they'd
thinned the fae enough they'd be able to hold without it. The dice were
thrown, now, and there was no use giving it any further thought. Juniper
would handle the rest. Arrows clattered against shields behind us, the
testudo formation drilled into the legionaries sparing them from the
worst of it. I heard Nauk scream for his men to pick up the pace and
left him to it. Hakram and I had other duties before us: we were, it
could be said, going \emph{hunting}.

``Where to?'' the orc gravelled.

I'd closed my eyes, letting Winter flow through my veins, and opened
them only when I found an answer.

``West,'' I said. ``Close to the river. Baron or unusually strong
lord.''

``It'll be good to shake the rust off before we take on the real
threats,'' he drily said.

We left the road and took a corner around what smelled like an abandoned
tannery. Wasn't surprised it was this far out. Most Callowan cities had
laws forcing trades that produced fumes that dire to remain on the
outskirts, no matter how useful. The streets out here were little more
than dirt paths between wooden shacks, most not even broad enough for
the two of us to pass through together. Though our entry had not gone
opposed, Summer did not disappoint: by the time we reached the first
broader street, we ran into our first ambush of the night. The only
warning was arrows whistling, betraying the location of silhouettes
standing over thatched roofs with bows in hand. I stepped to the side
without missing a beat and Hakram had been moving before I'd even
noticed. Archers on top, but there would be more. A dozen emerged from
abandoned houses at our front and back, swords in hands, as the archers
smoothly nocked their second volley.

``See Adjutant, they do love us,'' I mused. ``There's a party and
everything.''

``Don't play with your food,'' the orc chided.

We split without needing to warn each other. Fighting with Hakram was
like having a third arm, had been ever since he came into his Name. The
archers were not amateurs: they aimed where we'd be, not where we were,
and even adjusted for swiftness above that of mortals. Not well enough,
though. I was quicker than I'd been before Masego had tinkered with my
heart, and Adjutant had reflexes that were above even my own. He used
his Name more efficiently than me, I'd come to suspect. Hakram barrelled
into the fae swordsman, axe splitting open a skull before the arrows
even struck ground. As for me, I glanced at a sidewall and made the
wager it would survive my weight. A leap saw my foot land on the side of
it, then another had me landing in the midst of the archers. They
reacted smoothly, swords bared in the blink of an eye, but there were
only six. My shield swung out to crush the skull of the one closest to
me, and it might as well have been an eggshell. I turned a blade aside
and carved open the fae's throat, spinning to turn the swing into
another. They barely had time to raise their swords before three were
dead.

The ease of it scared me. They had been difficult to deal with, once.
Now I broke one's wrist with my shield, pierce into the second one's eye
with the tip of my blade and the third made to retreat. A flick of the
wrist and a blade of ice and shadow took her in the back of the neck,
snuffed out instantly. The last fae did not even have time to curse
before my shield smacked into his face, breaking the chin and crushing
the windpipe. Magic made flesh or not, there was no walking that off.
Hakram was a whirlwind spinning amidst struggling fae, taking a life
with every stroke, but I glimpsed arrowheads through a window at his
back. They had, it seemed, kept back archers. I let out a long breath
and pushed a sliver of power into my legs. The leap sent me sailing into
the air, tearing through the wall and landing on my knees in a shower of
shards. Three inside, I saw. One lost his wrist to the first flick and I
spun. Second was thrown out the window with his skull crushed by a
shield bash. Didn't even need to kill the third. I backed out of the
house and let it collapse onto him. That'd been a load-bearing wall,
apparently.

``Retreat,'' a musical voice called out.

I was watching the man it belonged to before he even spoke. The fae
around Hakram scattered, though not before his axe harmstrung one's leg
and his boot came down to crush her skull. The fae was the one I'd felt
earlier, a tall pale man with grey hair that looked made of granite.

``How many titled nobles do you have in the city?'' I asked.

``Enough to break you,'' the fae smiled. ``Her Majesty will take your
head personally.''

Shame I didn't have the time to hack off that one's limbs and bring him
back to Masego so the mage could dig out the information.

``Well,'' I said. ``One less after this.''

I didn't actually see the arrow coming, and that was telling. It was
utterly silent, and all I managed was to have it strike my shoulder
instead of my back. It punched straight through plate and I grimaced. He
hadn't come alone, and no regular had done this. I broke off the shaft
and ice spread over the wound, sealing it shut.

``I think,'' Hakram said calmly, ``that there will be no need to seek
them out.''

On the outskirts of Dormer, five fae stood around us. One was on the
rooftops, green-haired and from the looks of the longbow in his hand he
was responsible for that friendly tap I'd just received. Two more in the
streets, dark-skinned and wafting smoke. They looked liked twins, one a
man and the other a woman, each armed with a short spear and a blade.
The last one looked like a Yan Tei, honey-skinned and utterly hairless.
She had a short sword in one hand, and a thin wheel of pale steel in the
other.

``All right, so,'' I hummed. ``Correct me if I'm wrong.''

I pointed my blade at the twins.

``Baron and baroness,'' I said, then moved to the longbow man.
``Count.''

I mulled over the rest a heartbeat.

``Smug weaponless man's a jumped-up lord, and the one who brought a
wheel to a swordfight's a countess, but one ahead of the curve,'' I
finished.

``I am not jumped-up,'' the grey-haired fae hissed.

``That's exactly what you'd say if you were, though,'' I gently told
him.

The smoking twins grinned, and Gods was I glad Archer wasn't there to
make something of that. The one who'd looked at what made wagons move
and thought `I bet you could make a weapon out of that' offered a half
bow.

``I am the Countess of Wrathful Skies,'' she said. ``Second-in-command
to this host. Should you surrender presently, I can guarantee you will
not be tortured prior to execution.''

``Ah, the Praesi gambit,'' I mused. ``Always a crowd-pleaser. I'm going
to have to reply with the famous words of the Duke of Violent Squalls.''

Silence reigned for a moment.

``You have not said anything,'' the man with the bow said.

You had to love that about the fae, if nothing else: you could always
count on them to feed you the line.

``Neither did he,'' I said. ``\emph{Because I killed his smug ass}.''

Now that the usual diplomatic niceties were done with, I imagined
negotiations were about to break down. Best get ahead of that.

``Think you can handle the twins?'' I called out to Hakram.

``Long enough you'll kill your way through the rest, at least,'' the orc
agreed.

And then they tried to shoot him, because they were just \emph{terrible}
diplomats. I got a better look at the arrow, this time. Entirely wood,
and wreathed in green light. Likely had to do with the Count's full
title, whatever that was. In the heartbeat where Adjutant moved so the
shot would skim his pauldron instead of tear through his shoulder, the
rest of them moved. Grey hair called on something that had the ground
around him denting and every stone in sight turning to dust. The
Countess' wheel began spinning and lightning gathered along the sides of
it, growing larger by the instant. The smoke wafting from the twins
thickened into a cloud that enveloped them entirely. I cracked my neck.
This, I thought, was going to be a memorable ride. Best get it over with
quickly, or we'd be too battered to handle whatever Duke actually ran
this show.

I went for the archer first. If he was actually a Count it was dubious
he'd be a pushover in close quarters, but neither Hakram not I could
afford to be watching for arrows at all times while dealing with the
rest. Moving faster than anyone should be able to within the bounds of
Creation, the green-haired fae had another arrow flying before I'd even
made it to another roof. For a moment I thought he'd missed, but he'd
never aimed for me at all: the house I was going to use as a stepping
stone fell apart in a cloud of dust and I cursed. All right, so they
weren't idiots. Which was a real shame. Idiocy was a trait I prized in
people trying to kill me. Wrathful Skies attacked before I could change
my course, landing at my side wreathed in lightning. When she struck, it
was with two blades. One made of steel, going for my throat. The other,
lagging slightly behind, was made of lightning. I made he mistake of
parrying the short sword and in that instant the lightning connected
with our weapons, coursing down my blade and sending down horrid pain
and convulsions across my body.

First time I'd ever got hit by a lightning spell. I would not recommend
the experience to anyone. I managed to duck the arrow the other fucker
shot at my back, but when it struck ground instead green sorcery
glimmered and it grew pins like a porcupine.

``Shit,'' I eloquently grunted, and threw myself to the ground.

A storm of arrows burst out and flew in every direction. A least five
hit my plate, and if I hadn't gone down would have gone straight through
the aketon into my flesh. I rolled to avoid the lightning wheel coming
down on my head but that thing was trickier than it looked: when it
touched the street a wave of lightning spread from the point of contact
and had me convulsing again. This, I thought, was not going according to
plan. Because all of this clearly just wasn't enough, stone powder
coalesced above me and formed a massive obelisk that\ldots{} dropped.
\emph{Lightning first}, I thought, gritting my teeth. I reached for
Winter and frosted shadows formed an envelope around my body. They got
burned through as swiftly as I willed them into being, but that bought
me just long enough to scrabble out of the way of the obelisk. It turned
to powder immediately, but I had other problems on my hands. I dropped
my shield, since in the face of lightning it was just a liability, and
grabbed the Countess of Wrathful Skies' wrist when she tried to swing
down at me. Steadying my footing, I rotated and threw her right into the
trajectory of the arrow that was meant for the back of my neck.

A green shimmer and it was gone, because the bastards weren't going to
make it that easy on me. Stone powder formed around me in the shape of a
bubble. Containment, huh. At least they were taking me seriously. I
released the shadow envelope and backed away, but the powder followed.
Their first mistake of the night. He should have readjusted instead. The
Countess had landed on her feet and her wheel rose up, gathering ever
more lightning. Another arrow flew silently towards my chest, but I
wasn't falling for that one twice. My wrist flicked with unearthly
precision and I slapped it aside. When the smaller arrows burst out, it
was too far for any of them to hit me. \emph{He did not retire that
trick. Might be he can't when it's already been loosed}. The stone had
caught up to me, by now, and Wrathful Skies had a streak of lightning
floating above the wheel that looked like it was going to sting. My
opening.

``\textbf{Take},'' I said.

The Countess' eyes went wide as I claimed the sorcery above her head,
for just one moment wresting it from her control and tossing it straight
at the fae lord trying to contain me. Struck him right in the chest with
dark satisfaction. I was moving before my most dangerous opponent could
react, and the lack of arrow to duck had me surprised until I heard
Hakram's hoarse grunt. \emph{Shit}. I didn't have time to spare a look
as I avoided stepping stones entirely and leapt straight at the archer.
I got a boot in the helmet for it but caught it with my hand even as I
began to fall, drawing on Name strength so even from that awkward
position I managed to snatch him off his foot and swing him down behind
me. Right into the face of the the Countess of Wrathful Skies, as she
prepared to run me through. The two of them were smashed to the ground
in a pile of sprawling limbs. I thinned my lips, well aware I couldn't
afford to use Fall on these two even if it would be a near-guaranteed
kill. I needed it for the Duke. Shot a spear of ice at them out of spite
and immediately moved towards the lord.

He was back on his feet, in a narrow alley between two houses. The
powder formed a wall in front of me but I sped up and went through
before it solidified. Hastily he dragged it back to him and shot spears
of stone at me, the first at feet height and then rising. Panting, I
threw myself into a slide and narrowly went under the bottom stone. I
landed in a crouch in front of him and even as his skin turned to stone
my sword came up. Straight though the belly. He gasped and I rose as I
withdrew the blade, cutting straight through his neck in the next swing.
The head rolled on the floor, and there went the first of my opponents.
The walls to my side groaned, and I cursed when I saw the arrows
groaning from them. Fuck, could he pull that on \emph{all} wood? Furious
at the waste, I dug into Winter and froze both walls before he could get
the arrows flying. Another twist of will had the walls collapsing, and
even as the houses followed I turned to face the other two remaining.
The Countess kept her lightning wheel close, and not powerful enough to
be worth stealing. She'd learned. Not that I'd Take it lightly, anyway.

I could get another two uses out of that aspect tonight at most, and
every one I used on these was one less I could pull against the Duke.

``Yew,'' the Countess said. ``Travel. She'll target you otherwise.''

``I would never,'' I lied.

The possible count hesitated, but then lay hand on a wooden wall and
disappeared. Well, fuck. That was going to be a pain to deal with. There
was smoke in the distance where Hakram was fighting the others, and I
could hear rhythmic singing in a dialect of Kharsum I was unfamiliar
with. If he was well enough to sing, I decided, I could afford to be
careful dealing with these two.

``You are Duchess of Moonless Nights in truth,'' the Countess said.
``Reports of your power were greatly understated.''

``I'm just putting my whole heart into it, this time,'' I sharply
grinned. ``So, have you distracted me long enough for him to line up his
shot yet?''

``Why,'' the fae drily replied. ``I would never.''

What I'd meant to do was duck the arrow then kick it into the Countess'
face to make me an opening. It started going wrong on the first part:
while I avoided the arrow by a hair's breadth, it was already growing
pins. I had to roll through a window into a house to avoid the storm,
and Gods Below was that a mistake. Everything began growing spikes a
heartbeat later.

``I have made better tactical decisions in the past,'' I conceded out
loud.

I managed to tear through the door in time to avoid the worst of it, but
worst was a relative term when even the bloody door was shooting arrows
at me. About six of them stung their way straight into my back, through
plate and aketon both. A lot more worryingly, Wrathful Skies was waiting
for me in the street with the wheel raised. There wasn't so much sorcery
there it would be worth stealing, and that moment of reluctance cost me.
A dozen tendrils of lightning struck out and the better part of them
managed to hit me. The \emph{really} dangerous part, I managed to
realize even as my body screamed, was that the spell was continuous. The
other fae slid out of a wall to my side and nocked an arrow but let it
gather green light. Ominous.

``\textbf{Take},'' I gasped.

The Countess immediately cut the lightning, but it wasn't her I was
going for. For an instant I felt the green light and knew whom it
belonged to: the Count of Green Yew. His title spoke to growth and wood,
to- pain spiked my thoughts, scattering them. There was no fire in this,
but it was still born of Summer. Anathema to what I had become. It had
been enough anyway. The power I'd taken disappeared from the bow and I
shoved it into the same door that had wounded me. Tendrils of wood rose
and caught the lightning, freeing me. A heartbeat later the arrow struck
where I would have still been, but I was already moving. The Countess'
sword rose to parry my own, but it was only steel at this very moment
and in a contest of strength, I trumped her outright. Her blade driven
back she began to step back but I caught her throat with my bare hand.
Lightning flickered as she called it back from her wheel into her body
but it was much, much too late. My fingers clenched and a sickening
crack resounded as I snapped her spine and pulped her throat. Before her
body had dropped to the floor I was turning to the Count of Green Yew,
but he was already gone.

Retreat? It would be hellish to go through this city with the fae
popping out of every house to take a shot at us. No, can't be.
\emph{Summer doesn't retreat, not like that.} He could, however, have
decided to kill Adjutant so the twins would be freed to act against me.
Shit. Aside from the fact that if Hakram died I was going to murder
every last one of them, from the first fucking regular to the Queen
herself, fighting blind like the smoke-using fae must impose was one of
the ways I most hated fighting. I'd grown too use to relying on my
Name-sharpened senses. There was no time to dawdle. The smoke cloud was
easy enough to find, and I legged it towards there. I kept a eye on my
surroundings as I did, wary of an ambush, but I had forgotten one fact
about fae: they \emph{flew}. Three arrows landed in a triangle around
me, and the pins grew a heartbeat later. Heart sinking, I froze them.
I'd already used more than I'd wanted to, and I still had one other
major draw to deal with before I got to the Duke. At this rate I'd be
dead on my feet by the time I got there. On the other hand, at this rate
by the end of this all that would be left of the Summer Court was going
to be three guys and a graveyard.

Small comfort. The Count of Green Yew was flying half a mile above me
and already nocking an arrow. Making my way up there was going to be
tricky, against an opponent that specialized in range combat. The first
house I chose to use as a stepping stone was collapsed before I even
touched it and I had to resist the urge to flip him the finger.
Discarding the fanciness, I created a circle of shadow in the air and
leapt atop it. I was going to stab the bastard even if I had to claw my
godsdamned way up. The second circle I made, even as I dismissed the
first, was torn through by an arrow. I fell back to street level and
took a deep breath. That \emph{fucker}. I was going to have to make
multiple platforms every time, wasn't I? Drawing the power, I blinked at
what I saw above. He \emph{has} to see that, I thought. But the Count
shot another arrow at me instead, and even even as I danced away I was
laughing.

The lower edge of the trebuchet stone caught him at rib height.

I got a glimpse of red splatter and white bones before it got out of
sight, and faintly made note to find out what goblin had made that shot
so I could order them promoted. Hells, if I could accomplish that as
vicequeen without burning too many bridges I was going to have them made
\emph{count}. They'd sure as Hells earned it. It was harder to find
Hakram than I'd thought, after, because the smoke had dissipated. I
found Adjutant panting and bloodied in a marketplace, his armour black
as coal and his face bearing nasty wounds that were going to scar. His
dead hand gleamed strangely, at least the parts of it I could see. Most
of it had been shoved through the baroness' eye cavity. \emph{Gods}. My
second didn't fuck around, when he got serious. He ripped it out in a
shower of gore and crouched, almost too exhausted for words.

``Had to use Rampage,'' he croaked. ``Kept Stand. Think they were weak
for barons.''

I offered him my arm to grasp and helped him to his feet.

``Dipped a little too deep as well,'' I said. ``Hopefully the others
were more conservative, otherwise even if we take out the Duke we'll be
wiped when the Queen comes through.''

``Plan's not to fight her,'' he said.

``And those always go so well,'' I drily replied. ``You up for a run? We
need to catch up to Nauk.''

``I'll live,'' he said. ``No inner bleeding. Is it possible to bruise
your kidney?''

``I think mine is permanently blue,'' I said amusedly.

We made our way back to the main path, and only had to stop twice for
him to retch. There wasn't a lot of blood in it and Hakram was an orc,
so I wasn't overly worried. His people were built resilient, and Named
took that to an extreme. That part of the city had already been secured,
though the vanguard was long gone. It was the Deoraithe that held it now
and they made way for the both of us. Emptying his stomach had put
Hakram back on his feet, more or less, so he was spared the indignity of
my holding him up all the way to the front. Nauk found us before we fond
him. The fae, I saw, had razed a ring of houses around the city wall.
There must have been a moat as well, once, because I saw a pit around
even the gates that had been burned clean. It was empty now. The
Fifteenth had dug in their positions around the edge of the wall,
trading sporadic crossbow fire with the fae above. No sign of the
Immortals on the walls, which was relief and worry both.

``Cat,'' Nauk grinned. ``Good hunting?''

``We cleaned house in the west,'' I said. ``Can't answer for the rest.''

``Whatever you did there, it collapsed their flank,'' the legate said.
``We hold most of that side now. To the east we've got ten thousand
holding a neighbourhood near the walls. Deoraithe failed to break
through, but they're contained.''

I raised an eyebrow.

``And the rest?''

That left ten thousand missing.

``They tried another run at the trebuchets,'' Nauk said. ``We lost
another two and half our ballistas, but they were beaten back. Saw them
fly behind the walls.''

I grimaced. That was a lot more fae in the inner city than I'd wanted to
deal with.

``The Immortals?'' I prompted.

``We think they hold the castle,'' the orc said. ``To make sure the
Queen has foothold when she crosses.''

I clenched my fingers, then unclenched them.

``Doesn't matter,'' I finally said. ``We break through now. What time is
it?''

``Midnight Bell was an hour ago,'' Nauk replied.

Then we needed to hurry. Behind the walls would be an even uglier fight.

``Scry Masego,'' I ordered. ``He's to dismiss his last ward and join us
for the push.''

The legate bared his fangs.

``Wade in their blood, Catherine Foundling,'' he said.

``Gods, I hope not,'' I replied. ``Hakram spends long enough cleaning my
armour as is.''

The grin I got was worth the words, considering the casualties his
advance must have caught. When I found Adjutant again the Gallowborne
were already with him. Tribune Farrier saluted, and promptly handed me a
shield. It had, I noted, my very fresh heraldry painted on it.

``Figured you might break your first one,'' the dark-haired man said.

I thanked him decided not to tell him it was actually fine and that it
had just entirely slipped my mind to double back to pick it up. I rolled
my shoulder and took a look at the walls. Those might take hours to
breach, if we let the trebuchets do the heavy lifting. Even more now
that we'd lost over half of them.

``Cluster tight around me,'' I ordered Farrier. ``Shields up. They'll be
aiming at us all the way.''

``They always do,'' the Callowan smiled. ``And yet, here we are.''

I smiled back, though the affection was short-lived. There were a lot of
new faces among the men, and I knew exactly why. I took the lead, Hakram
at my side and the Gallowborne at my back. The fae on the walls only
fired a few arrows at us, though that'd change if they saw we didn't
retreat. I closed my eyes and let Winter loose. I took a step, and ice
rose. One step after another, a stairway of ice rose in front and then
above the gates of Dormer. It was, I knew, wide enough for three hundred
men to go up. It was burning through my reserves, cooling my blood. It
was also how my armies were going to take the city.

I advanced, and the Fifteenth advanced with me.