The Fall of Amber: Defense of the Castle
"All right. I'm headed that way to pick up my sword, anyway. When they muster, I'll send a few to you." Larissa paused at the door. "Islain...if--if the day goes against us, just run for Rebma. You can meet up with our armies when they make it back." Larissa didn't wait for a response, and left the breakfast room at a run. In the hallway, she grabbed the nearest warm body, under the assumption that anyone she could accost would be lower in the hierarchy than she was. The footman so grappled looked surprised at the familiarity, or possibly at the strength of her grip. "Run to the guard room. General quarters. Tell them to wake everyone and send runners to watch the walls and gates." Larissa took off again as the footman jogged away on his mission, rubbing his upper arm. She overshot her own door to go pound on Islain's. "Shanna," she said to the wide-eyed woman who answered, "Islain wants the yellow roses. Have them report to the guard room." She waited just long enough for an acknowledgement, and sprinted to her own rooms, where she kicked open a dark wood footlocker. Kneeling, she withdrew the bag that contained the pieces of her armor--a breastplate and greaves, and a helmet. "Medieval," she muttered. Following them was her sword, a wicked thing, graceful and sharp. She spared a longing glance at the unassuming dull black clothes, marked with the Trader star, that lay neatly folded beneath, and for the small pistol that sat next to them, both useless in Amber. Leaving the past and her rooms behind her, Larissa slung her pack over a shoulder and, sword gripped halfway down the scabbard, barreled into the guard room, where alarmed-looking men were doing vaguely military things and a breathless footman was just leaving. "In case anyone missed it, we are under attack," Larissa declared. "And in case no one figured it out, I am in command at the Castle." She let her bag thump onto a bench, and started digging out pieces of armor. "Before anything else, round up the pages and get them in here. I'll need runners. Oh, hey, I was wondering where that went," she said when a main gauche clattered to the stone floor as she emptied her kit. "Where's the Captain?" she demanded, looking about the room for a soldier in a fancier uniform. Not only a fancier uniform - a promising moustache too. He saluted sharply. Larissa, half into her breastplate, acknowledged the salute with a hand freed up expressly for the purpose. "There's a force advancing from Garnath, Ma'am!" he said. "A fleet has been spotted off Cabra. And they seem to have a squadron of wyverns - they're engaged in attacking Corwin's Folly! Prince Gerard has gone ... " Suddenly there was a thunderous crash - so loud it seemed to make the stones of the castle shake. It seemed to come from the direction of the town. "Dark between the stars!" Larissa cursed, "that was the mother of all feints." One got the impression she wasn't talking about the latest tooth-rattler. Islain caught hold of the doorway at the sound of the crash, her head whipping back in that direction automatically, though there was no window to afford her a view of what was happening. Immediately she righted herself and strode over to her sister. It was, perhaps, the first time any had seen Islain wear weapons openly, although she always moved as if she were armed. "My mother," she bit off the words, "will not send troops. I do not know if the attackers have spoken to her or if she is simply attempting to look neutral. But we," here she ran her cold gaze over the assembled soldiers with a brief feral smile, "will show that watery bitch we don't need her help after all." There was an audible gasp of dismay from the men gathered in the room. Larissa embraced her sister, gingerly on account of the breastplate. "I'm sorry, Islain," she whispered, while her mouth was close to the other's ear. "But in the future, don't announce bad news to the room at large." Islain's eyes suddenly cleared, her expression losing the dreamy sense of rage that had clouded it before. Suddenly she shook slightly and even seemed slightly embarrassed. "Yes, of course, Larissa." She released Islain. "All right. You" she pointed at one of the first arriving pages "pull some help from the domestics and start setting up an infirmary in the Throne Room. Cots if you can get 'em, blankets on the floor if you can't. Keep clear aisles and get some tables in there for supplies and surgery." The page nodded, clearly proud to have been trusted with responsibility ahead of his envuious fellows, and shot off. Larissa sat and started strapping mail to her legs. "Captain, appoint somebody Intel coordinator; I don't care who. Incoming runners report to him, not me. I want a picture of what's happening out there within the next few minutes. "Nobody not recognized by sight and able to answer questions about their childhood gets into the curtain. I will break the man responsible for that if it happens. Spread the word." Larissa stood and threw a steely glare around. The Captain saluted and through a harassed look round - before beckoning to one of the older-looking men. "You...kitchens." She picked out her bracers. "Tell them to start brewing coffee and preparing to feed round-the-clock watches. Then round up all the honey and take it to the Throne Room." Her expression dissuaded any questions about that particular unorthodox order. Another page looked bewildered, then nodded and acampered off. "You...laundries. Have them boil a few dozen sheets, air dry them, and have someone with clean hands start tearing bandages. Unless we've got a stockpile of sterile gauze no one told me about?" The Captain, seeing himself addressed, shook his head regretfully. The chosen page sped off to carry out Larissa's orders. "Archers to the walls. Hit anything Chaos-looking that gets close enough. Have we got any ballistae modified with paddles?" she asked the Captain. "I don't want to pepper our people with arrows, but if Chaos takes a ward...well." Larissa clapped a hand against her leg. There was a clank. "We could have something rigged," said the Captain a little doubtfully. "Most of the engineers, though, they're awa' in Chaos at the moment." "And somebody," here she grinned wolfishly and kicked the fallen dagger up into her hand, "run down to the armory and get me a longbow and a quiver of barbed arrows. Once we get things ticking here, we'll see what we can do about those wyverns. "Captain," she finished, "make me a War Room." Larissa gestured around the guard room, where the assembled troops were looking faintly shell-shocked and the sound of pounding feet of pages was receding into the distance. "Yes, Ma'am!" he responded with a smart salute. "So, Islain," Larissa said, belting her sword to her waist, "ever stood to battle before?" "No," Islain said coolly, completely reconciled by now to her condition and without any sense of the emotion which had previously clouded her jade eyes. "But I have arrayed others for battle, if you desire help with your armor." Ostensibly tightening her shoulder straps, she whispered into Larissa's ear, "And I have killed before. On more than one occasion." "I'd had my suspicions," Larissa said, deadpan. "Have you got Trumps of any of our uncles who are with the army?" Larissa had folded her arms and was drumming her fingers. "If you have, see if you can get hold of them--I want to know when we can expect reinforcements, and a couple of uncles here and now would be a considerable help." Her face darkened. "Assuming they're not under assault themselves, out there in Shadow." "I have Trumps of Julian and Caine," Islain admitted. "I will try them. Would you care to contact the one I don't Trump first so we can save time?" She slipped her Trumps from her pocket again and found Julian's, and then Caine's. "I'll try after I have a status report. If you can raise Julian, I'll join the contact and fill him in." Larissa turned toward the mustachioed man. "Captain?" she said, raising her voice somewhat to carry over the activity in the room. Islain nodded and focused on Julian's trump, on the familiar curve of his jaw, the way his long hair fell onto the shoulderplates of his armor... "Yes, Ma'am?" said the Captain, saluting smartly. "Orders carried out, Ma'am. Corwin's Folly is taking a pounding, but Pronce Gerard has reached there - he's holding his own, Ma'am." "Good to hear." The tight line of Larissa's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly beneath her armor. "Do we have any idea of the enemy's troop strength and what units they're fielding, besides wyverns?" The Captain began to outline the disposition of the army advancing through Garnath. If not quite as great as the army that had attacked in the Battle of the Black Road, it was still a formidable force. And it was clear from the way it was advancing to attack, that its understanding of the topology of Amber was very much greater. All the time the heavy pounding of the wyverns was keeping up. One explosion sounded so close that many of the soldiers threw themselves flat on the ground. "We have got to do something about those wyverns," Larissa muttered. "I'm heading for the walls," she continued normally. "Captain, you're in command, et cetera. Tell Islain where I've gone when she's done--and if she wants to grab a bow and join me, I won't object." Larissa grabbed the bow and quiver she'd ordered from a breathless guard and ran out. And almost collided with a scared page running the other way. "It's Prince Gerard!" he blurted out. "He's been hit!" Larissa's quiver dropped to the floor, since she was using that hand to grab the page. "Details." Her voice was frighteningly calm, and her face showed no emotion at all. "An explosion - the wyverns," said the page. "The Old Peculiar Club - that big stone buidling in Stonemartin Street. His Highness had made it his headquarters. The wyverns scored a direct hit ... liquid fire. And ... and then it collapsed." "Thank you," Larissa said, eyes closed, voice still glacial. "Tell Islain and only Islain. The guard room as a whole does not need to know. Tell her also I will send word if I intend to change tactics." She opened her eyes, and they, too, were ice. "Go." The page left at a run, and Larissa picked up her quiver and went to the wall. From here she could see that a good proportion of the Lower City was in flames. Chaosians (at least, she imagined they were Chaosians) were pouring through a breach in the walls. Some had human forms - but there were other forms that shifted as they moved too - and battalions of creatures hauled out of Black Shadows and unleashed now to do their worst. The place where the Old Peculiar had stood was a smoking ruin now - as sharp as a newly broken tooth. Coolly, methodically, Larissa strung her bow, and started to kill. And they died and died ... but always there were more. And the wyverns came again overhead with vicious fire to flame her from position - or to destroy the lowere city. Once the captain of the guard had to drag her back lest she be hit. "Madame! You must come! We need you - if you fall ... who will lead Amber?" He was successful only because Larissa had run out of arrows. "What word from the City?" she asked flatly. She stroked the bowstring with one gloved thumb, looking across Corwin's Folly. He shook his head. "A page has come from Corwin's Folly. He says Gerard is broken, near to death," he said. "But ... we cannot go there ... it would be too dangerous ... " Larissa showed the first signs of being anything but an automaton since she'd come to the ramparts. "You can't, perhaps." She tossed the bow aside. "You have command, et cetera. I'll be incommunicado for the near future." Pausing only briefly to cast an evaluating glance down the outer wall of the Castle, Larissa ran for the stairs.
The cards was cold - but lifeless. It seemed impossible to make contact... as though there was some block. Islain attempted to push through, and when (assuming she is unsuccessful) she finally gave up, rubbing her temples to ward off the growing headache, she found that Larissa had left the room. A few of her Yellow Roses had made it to the room by now, as Larissa had instructed, and she beckoned them to a small corner and began to give private, specific, and extremely bloody instructions of what each should do if the fighting reached the Castle. "After all, one must be certain of death, and with shapeshifters, less may not suffice," she said. The Yellow Roses shared worried looks. "How will we know they are truly our enemies then?" asked one. "And have not shifted themselves into the form of friends?" asked another. "I doubt they can assume forms they have not yet seen. If you follow my instructions and stay where I place you, they should be unable to take the form of your companions. If they guess at a person you know, ply them with questions only that person can answer and if they hesitate for a moment, finish them. We can have no mistakes. It will be better that an innocent dies than that Chaosites take Amber." Islain's voice was cool and firm. She knew her men and women - she had handpicked them for their efficiency, their ruthlessness (in some cases cruelty), and their loyalty to her and her alone. "You may rest assured I will do the same, so prepare yourselves should you desert your posts to seek me out." There was murmured agreement, a little subdued. Then the Roses glided away to take up their stations - and leaving Islain to take up hers. The position Islain took might seem, at first glance, a strange one. She strode purposefully to the throne room, walked up the stairs of the dais and stood resolutely before the throne, blocking it from view but not sitting. And there she stood, statue-like, conveying a great feeling of coldness, and the idea that she might be capable of standing there for eternity should that be required.
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