Read Online The Gods Return by Drake David - Free Book Online

below.
    "Begone, you thieves and vagabonds!" cried a man not far from Cashel. He was using a megaphone. The three fellows next to him were older, fatter, and wore gold chains for ornament, so the herald was probably speaking their words. "If you're not gone in three minutes by the sand glass, we'll shoot you all down like the dogs you are!"
    They were on top of a gatehouse. There was a socket where a catapult was probably meant to pivot, but there wasn't one in place now. Several soldiers had bows, though, and the folks below were only a furlong away. That was in range of a good bowman.
    Rasile was getting to her feet. Cashel put out his arm for her to grab. A man wearing a molded breastplate meant for somebody much thinner strode through them on his way to the group around the herald. Cashel didn't feel the contact, and it didn't seem like the local fellow had either.
    "I think we're seeing something that occurred recently," Rasile said. Her tongue clucked against the side of her long jaw in a Corl equivalent of a grin. "Or perhaps something that will occur shortly. I do not know where it is, however."
    Cashel thought about the way the people around couldn't see or touch him and Rasile, but there wasn't any point in talking about something that the wizard knew a lot better than he did. He said, "We're on Ombis on Telut, I think. I've never been here, but the colors the servants of the envoys from there wore in Valles are the same as—"
    He pointed to the cloth hanging down from the herald's megaphone. It was orange around the edges and slashed green on black inside the border.
    "—that is."
    Cashel noticed shapes and patterns without having to think about them. Sheep might all look alike to city folk, but a shepherd knows each of his flock by name even if he can't count above ten without a tally stick. Heraldry was nothing at all to somebody tuned to little differences in the brown/black/gray/white markings of Haft sheep.
    "The fellow in the green robe there," he said as the tallest of the three men in fancy dress turned so Cashel could see his face, "he's the one who was the envoy himself last spring."
    There were folks on the wall as far around as Cashel could see from the gate tower. The city wall was only twice his height—the tower was half that again—but that was still a huge advantage.
    The defenders weren't well armed. Besides the soldiers, some of the better-dressed civilians had swords and maybe even metal armor, but the rest carried spears of a simple pattern that'd probably come from the city armory. They were in leather caps and breastplates.
    That was probably good enough, though, because the attackers outside the walls were just what the herald had called them: vagabonds and thieves. Some were armed with swords as good as those of Ornifal nobles. The gold inlays and ivory hilts didn't mean much in a fight, but Cashel knew that fancy touches like those were often put on the best steel by the best craftsmen.
    But there weren't many with swords, and even those few didn't go in much for armor. Some carried boat pikes, long-shafted weapons with a hook below the point to catch rigging or the rail of a ship trying to keep clear. Cashel guessed they were pirates. Even without better weapons, it would've looked hard for the city if the whole army had been that sort.
    But all beyond a couple double handsful of pirates were escaped slaves, farm laborers, and the sort of thing you'd find if you emptied out prisons. Some had been branded or were missing hands. They had clubs, pitchforks, and poles with a knife tied to the end.
    And there were women. Cashel knew women could fight: he'd seen Sharina joint enemies with her Pewle knife, and even Garric's delicate Lady Liane carried a blade that could—and had—cut deep enough to open the big blood vessels. Some of the slatterns below would be dangerous in an alley or a crowded taproom.
    But they weren't going to batter through stone walls. There were plenty of women on