"Centurion," she greeted him.

"Countess."

"How does it look?"

He nodded out toward the oncoming Marat, hardly more than a mile away now. "They've stopped," he told her. "Out past our best bow range, even for these holder boys. They're waiting."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "Sunrise maybe. If they give it a few minutes, the sun will be in our eyes when it comes up."

"Will it hurt us much?"

He shrugged. "It won't help."

She nodded. "How long can we expect to hold them?"

"No telling with these things. If we can keep them off the walls, out of the gates, a good long while."

"Long enough to give a group of wagons a running start?"

He glanced at her. "The holders' wagons?"

Amara nodded. "We're loading them with the women and children right now."

Giraldi looked at her steadily for a moment, then nodded. "All right then. We'll hold them long enough. Excuse me." He turned and stepped back from the battlements to meet a panting legionare who had made his

way down the wall. Amara followed him. Giraldi frowned and asked, "Where are those canteens, man?"

The legionare saluted. "Sorry, sir. They're in the east warehouse, and it's already been secured."

"Already been secured," Giraldi growled. "How do you know?"

"Door was locked."

Giraldi frowned at the man. "Well, find Harger and get him to-what's that on your shoes?"

"Hay, sir."

"Where did you get hay in your boots, legionare?"

"One of the holders threw it there, sir. They're tossing it all over the courtyard."

"What?"

Amara stepped in. "My orders, Centurion."

"Uh," Giraldi said. He swept off his helmet and rubbed at his short-cropped hair. "With all due respect, Your Ladyship, what kind of idiot order is that? If you put hay all over the courtyard, it'll make the prettiest fire you ever saw, and among our own, to boot. For all we know they're going to be shooting flame arrows over the wall."

"It's a calculated risk, Centurion, that I cannot explain here."

"Lady," Giraldi began to protest.

From down the wall, someone shouted, "Sir!"

Amara and Giraldi both turned to look down the wall.

A pale-faced young legionare jerked his chin out toward the plains beyond the fortress. "Here they come."

Chapter 40

Amara rushed back to the battlements with Giraldi beside her and watched as the Marat horde, beneath the droning yawls of huge, hollowed animal horns, began a determined advance, moving forward at a steady trot, with wolves and herdbane loping along beside them.

"Crows," whispered one of the legionares beside Amara She saw the man reach for his spear, fumble it, and drop it She flinched, hand flashing out and batting the falling weapon away from her

Giraldi caught it in one scar-knuckled hand "Steady," he growled, eyes on Amara He passed the spear back to the legionare "Steady, lads "

The horde grew closer The sounds of thousands of feet hitting the ground as they ran rose like far off thunder

"Steady," Giraldi said He looked up and down the line and barked, "Archers' Shields'"

The legionares stepped up to the battlements In each crenellation stood a man with one of the huge Legion wall shields Behind each, another legionare, armed with a bow and a thick war-quiver of arrows, strung his bow and took position Most of the archers were holders from the Valley

The Marat grew closer, the eerie droning of their horns growing louder, more unnerving A restless shuffle went down the line of shieldmen

"Steady," Giraldi commanded He glanced at the young holder in borrowed armor beside him "You sure you lads can shoot that far'"

The holder peeked around the edge of the shield of the burly legionare in front of him "Yes They're in range "

Giraldi nodded "Archers!" he growled "Fire at will!"

All up and down the line, archers set arrows to their bows, their tips pointing up at the sky, standing close to their shield man Amara watched the nearest young man half-draw his bow, then bump his partner with his hip The legionare knelt, lowering the shield, and the archer drew as he lowered the bow, took quick aim, and loosed at the oncoming Marat His partner stood up again swiftly, bringing his shield back into position

All along the wall, the archers began shooting Each man loosed an arrow every five or six breaths, or even faster Amara stood beside Giraldi in the one crenellation not occupied by a shieldman and watched the arrows slither through the air and into the oncoming Marat ranks The deadly aim of the Aleran holders dropped Marat and beast alike with equal ferocity, littering the ground with fresh corpses, making the eager crows swoop and dive in a swarm over the charging horde

But still the horde came on

The archers had begun shooting at close to six hundred yards-an incredible distance, Amara knew They had to have been woodcrafters of nearly a Knight's skill to manage such a feat For perhaps a minute, there

was no sound but the grunt of archers drawing bows, legionares kneeling and standing again, the droning blare of Marat horns, and the rumbling of thousands of feet.

But when the Marat closed to charging range of the walls, the entire horde erupted in a sudden shout that hit Amara like a wall of cold water- chilling, terrifying in its sheer intensity. At the same moment, the war birds let out a shrill, piercing shriek, terrifying from one such beast, but from the thousands below, the sound almost seemed a living thing all its own. At the same moment, the sun broke the horizon across the distant plains, a sudden harsh light that swept over the top of the battlements first, and made archers flinch and squint as they attempted their next shot.

"Steady!" Giraldi bellowed, voice barely carrying over the din. "Spears!"

The shield-bearing centurions gripped their spears, faces set in a fighting grimace.

Below, the Marat charge hit the first razor-edged defensive spikes the holders had crafted out of the earth itself. Amara watched closely, her heart in her throat. The leaders in the Marat charge began to leap and skip among the spikes, looking for all the world like children playing at hopping games. Behind them leapt their animals. Amara saw some of the Marat, with heavy, knotted cudgels, begin to strike the spikes from the sides, shattering them.

"The ones with clubs," Amara said. "Tell the archers to aim for them. The longer we can keep the spikes in place, the harder it will be for them to pressure the gate."

Giraldi grunted and relayed her order up and down the walls, and the archers, instead of firing into the enemy at random, began to pick their targets.

Scaling poles and ropes with hooks fashioned of some kind of antlers or bone began to lift toward the wall. Legionares thrust at the poles with the crossguards of their spears, pushing them away, and some drew their swords to hack at ropes as they came up, while the archers continued to fire on the enemy. Arrows began to flicker up from the horde below, short, heavy arrows launched from oddly shaped bows. One of the archers beside Amara lingered in aiming his shot for too long, and an arrow struck him through both cheeks in a sudden welter of blood. The holder choked, dropping.

"Surgeon!" Amara yelled, and a pair of men on the wall moved quickly to the fallen man, dragging him down before going to work on removing the arrow.

Amara stepped back to the battlements. She swept her gaze over the

enemy below, but she couldn't see anything beyond a horde of Marat and their beasts, so many thousands of them that it was difficult to tell where one left off and the other began.