by R. S. Ford
Even as he lunged forward he expected the Iron Tusk to lash out with one of his huge fists. As his hand closed around the knife handle he knew he was slow, he would never be quick enough. The knife came out of the ground with ease, and still Laigon never believed he could finish the warlord.
His aim was true. Yet before he could finish his strike a sword sliced down, knocking the knife from his hand with a clash of steel. That sword came up again, resting beneath Laigon’s chin. He looked to his right and Petrachus was holding the blade, too big in his little boy’s hands, but still he held it. He stood there stock still, his stance perfect, eyes fixed on Laigon. There was no emotion in them, and Laigon knew that one command from the Iron Tusk and Petrachus would have cut his throat.
‘You see,’ said the Iron Tusk. ‘What once was yours is now mine. But I can give it back to you. All you need do is pledge yourself to me. Let yourself believe, Laigon Valdyr, and you will have everything you ever wished for.’
Laigon stared at his son. Petrachus still stood, that blade held tight in his hands, not wavering, not faltering. Laigon could never have hoped to train a recruit so young to demonstrate such impeccable form. A power was at work here beyond his understanding.
He fell back, defeated, leaning against the prop post, fighting his tears once more.
Petrachus sheathed his sword as the Iron Tusk rose to his feet.
‘If I cannot persuade you, if the loyalty of your son does not inspire you, then perhaps another can sway you onto the right path.’
A woman entered behind Petrachus. Laigon knew who it was before he even looked at her face. Verrana rested her hands on Petrachus’ shoulders and Laigon heard himself whisper ‘no’ involuntarily. Not his wife. Not his love.
‘You see,’ said the Iron Tusk. ‘It is foolish to resist the inevitable. If you still insist on this stubbornness, this hubris, then let me show you the true power of devotion.’
Laigon looked up fearfully, wondering what the Iron Tusk would do. Whether the warlord would wring his wife’s neck. Whether he would order Petrachus to run her through. He did neither.
The Iron Tusk merely stood there as Laigon’s wife and son knelt down before him. They bowed their heads, clasping their hands together and raising their voices in prayer. With every well-practised word they pledged their devotion, they wished for his victory, they begged for him to be restored to health. And as Laigon sat there and watched, he saw the warlord’s wounds close up. The deep rents in his side and shoulder knitted together before Laigon’s eyes, the myriad cuts and bruises on his flesh healing over.
When they had finished their prayers, the Iron Tusk fixed Laigon with his steely eye once more. ‘What say you now? What will you do now your family is mine?’
Laigon still held the pewter figurine in his fist. He squeezed the tiny statue of Portius until his hand bled, gritting his teeth against temptation until his head throbbed.
‘I will kill you,’ he said.
‘Traitor,’ spat Verrana. ‘You are the one who will die.’
Laigon knew then he had lost her. He had lost his son. There was nothing else to say.
‘It is clear you have much to think on,’ said the Iron Tusk. ‘I will leave you to reflect. But do not take forever, Laigon Valdyr. Time is not on your side.’
The Iron Tusk left him alone. Petrachus and Verrana left too, neither deigning to look at him.
The Iron Tusk’s guards entered, and Laigon was bound once more to the prop post. As he was finally alone in the dark and the candles burned down to nothing, all Laigon was left with were his own prayers.
32
ERMUND’S body lay wrapped in linens in the middle of the chapel. Ctenka kept watch as the children knelt beside him. Lena and Castiel had been praying all night. Ctenka wondered where they got their energy.
For his part, Ctenka was done with praying. What bloody good was it doing them anyway?
It hadn’t done Ermund any good.
His friend lay there, still and lifeless. Ctenka was finished with crying as well as praying. There were no more tears left. Who the hell was going to cry for him when he was run through by a Shengen spear? There’d be no prayers said for poor, dead Ctenka Sunatra. Just a shallow grave, if he was lucky.
The door to the chapel opened and Josten stood there. Sweat had gathered on his brow and his shirt was drenched from the noonday heat.
‘It’s ready,’ he said.
Ctenka nodded, moving to help with the body, but Josten raised his hand. The southerner lifted Ermund’s corpse, hefting it over his shoulder and making his way from the chapel.
Ctenka followed him out, past the legionaries of the Red Standing preparing for battle. Past the scared and tired militia. Past the wounded and the not-so-wounded as they cowered in the shadows of Dunrun’s walls.
They walked out into the desert and Ctenka could see the makeshift markers designating a forgotten graveyard. There was one freshly dug hole.
As Josten gently laid Ermund in the grave, Ctenka knew it was time to stop feeling sorry for himself. Ermund had given his life to defend this place. Would Ctenka do the same when the time came? When Josten picked up the shovel and started covering up the body, Ctenka told him to wait.
‘Shouldn’t we say something?’ he asked.
Josten stabbed his shovel into the ground and looked up, squinting in the sun. ‘You a priest all of a sudden?’
‘No, but I… I just thought…’
Josten sighed. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘Here lies Ermund Harlaw. One time Duke of Ravensbrooke. Always a bastard.’ He paused, seeming suddenly regretful. ‘And he was my friend once.’
The genuine sorrow in Josten’s voice surprised Ctenka. He doubted Josten Cade had many friends, it was clear he was a difficult man to like, yet here he was burying one of the few that had. For the first time, Ctenka felt sorry for the man.
‘Now,’ said Josten, turning from the grave. ‘Feel free to finish burying the fucker.’
As Josten walked away, Ctenka did as he was bid. He’d expected to be more emotional as he put Ermund in the earth, but all he felt was numb.
Just as he finished he heard a bell ringing from inside the fort.
Before he realised what he was doing, Ctenka was running. Once inside the fort he was relieved to see other men were running with him. The Red Standing had already positioned themselves in front of the gate. Silver stood with them, sword drawn. If her shoulder was still hurting from the arrow wound she didn’t show it. Beside her were Lena and Castiel, determined to be by her side when the Shengen army burst through.
Ctenka pushed his way to the front, where the two children were standing. He had seen what they could do, knew they were more than just children, but still he felt the need to protect them. Despite how devastating they were, despite the way they might have turned the tide of the battle, Ctenka couldn’t let them stay to face the enemy spears. He was responsible for them. When he’d given that oath to Randal, pledged his word to keep them safe, he hadn’t meant it. To his shame all he’d been concerned with was himself. Things were different now. Lena and Castiel had been gifted to him like slaves, but Ctenka would be damned if he’d see them treated like that.
‘Come away,’ he said, grasping Lena’s freezing cold hand.
She pulled away from him, not moving from Silver’s side.
The woman looked down. ‘Do as you are bid, little ones,’ she said.
When they hesitated, Silver knelt down, motioning them closer. The two children moved in, listening as she whispered something in their ears. They both smiled at her words, then obediently turned and took Ctenka’s hands. He walked back with them through the mess of bodies and fearful men who looked ready to weep. All that stood between the might of an army and his country.
Once they were through the Hangman’s Gate and back in the main courtyard of Dunrun, Ctenka knelt beside them.
‘You have to wait here,’ he said. ‘And if they break through, you have to run and hide.�
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Both of them looked at him as though he’d been speaking a foreign language.
‘Do you hear me? Stay here.’
‘And do what?’ Lena said.
Ctenka couldn’t think of much. ‘Pray,’ he said finally.
To his surprise, the children immediately knelt in the courtyard and began to quietly mumble their prayers. For all the good it would do them. For all the good it would do any of them.
Ctenka left them and went back to the gate. On his way he heard the sonorous beat of a ram smashing against the gate and, for a moment, wished he was back there praying with the children. It echoed ominously, the gate below the high chapel rumbling and cracking with every slam.
At Vallion’s word, what remained of the Red Standing braced their shields. Silver stood impassively, like a dust-covered statue. Ctenka stood beside her. Josten’s gaze was fixed on the gate as though willing the enemy to break it down so he could wreak his vengeance. To his surprise, Ctenka felt ready to do some avenging of his own.
Timbers smashed. The head of the ram crashed through. Shengen axes went to work, taking down the loose timbers. Ctenka braced himself, expecting the attacking army to come bursting through, but it wasn’t a unit of armoured men that came charging.
It was the Iron Tusk himself.
His flesh was unblemished, the devastating wounds Silver had inflicted on him the day before miraculously healed. Again he carried axe and sword, swinging them as though they weighed nothing. With one mighty blow he swept aside the shield wall of the Red Standing, sending half a dozen legionaries sprawling.
Silver ran forward to plug the gap, her sword striking at the Iron Tusk, but Ctenka could already see she was slower than before, and her thrust was easily batted aside by the warlord. Where before she had dodged and sidestepped every blow, dancing around him as though he were a tethered animal, now it was the Iron Tusk’s turn to dominate.
He roared as he hacked at her, Silver barely able to parry axe and sword. Their weapons rang off one another, the sound rising above the noise of the battle. Ctenka watched in awe and fear as Silver ducked a sweep of the axe, then stepped out of range of the sword as it swung down and thudded into the ground.
Silver lunged in again, blade striking true at the warlord’s heart, but the Iron Tusk merely turned it aside with his sword, axe countering. It caught Silver at the hip and she yelled, staggering back. The Iron Tusk’s blood was up, sensing victory, howling as he rushed forward for the kill.
Ctenka was already running. He sprinted straight at the Iron Tusk and when the monster raised his axe for the killing blow, Ctenka brought his sword up. He had no thought other than to defend Silver, no matter what it would cost him.
The Iron Tusk’s blow would have felled a tree, but when it clashed against Ctenka’s steel it halted. Ctenka could see the Iron Tusk glaring with that one eye and disbelief seemed to cloud it for a moment. Everything stopped about them. Ctenka’s weapon was locked with this inhuman beast. The sinew of his muscle felt as though it would burst through his flesh, but still Ctenka held his weapon there.
Reality hit him like a hammer. Suddenly the stench of the warlord, sweat and raw meat, almost knocked him over in a nauseating wave. His arm began to falter under the incredible weight of the Iron Tusk’s strength. The stunned silence rang out louder than a thunderclap as he realised both armies had stopped to witness what was happening.
Ctenka was about to die, that’s what was fucking happening.
The Iron Tusk pulled back, hefting his weapon for another killing blow, and this time Ctenka knew he didn’t have the strength to stop it. All he could do was watch as the axe came crashing down.
A weight hit him from the side, knocking him out of the way as the axe slammed into the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. Ctenka looked up to see Silver sprawled on top of him.
She leapt to her feet, one hand grasping the wound at her side, sword in the other, ready to take on the Iron Tusk once more.
Before she could attack, the Red Standing rallied.
Vallion led them in a mass of red armour. Where before they had been well-ordered troops, their shields locked in a disciplined wall, now they were a furious horde, bent on murdering the warlord.
Silver staggered towards the melee but stumbled, the wound in her side deep, blood spilling from between her fingers. Josten was suddenly by her side.
‘We have to go,’ he growled, fresh blood on his sword and a wound across his cheek.
Ctenka rose to his feet, still shaking from his encounter with the Iron Tusk, still feeling what little power he had ebb from his tired muscles.
Silver tried to move back towards the fray but Josten stopped her.
‘This gate is lost. We have to retreat.’
Ctenka could see her glaring at the fight, yearning to join in, but they knew this was a battle they could not win. The Iron Tusk could not be defeated.
Limping from the encounter, they moved back as the rest of the militia withdrew to the Hangman’s Gate. Ctenka heard Vallion cry ‘To the death!’ as he retreated to the relative safety of Dunrun’s final courtyard. Before they closed the gate, he saw the last men of the Red Standing swarming all over the Iron Tusk like wolves taking down a bear. Only this bear would not be beaten.
When the gates were closed the sound of battle dulled.
‘We left them,’ Ctenka said, still listening to the Red Standing fighting to the last.
‘There was nothing we could do,’ said Josten.
Ctenka knew that wasn’t true. They could have fought alongside them till the end. They could have died heroes instead of cowering behind the last gate of Dunrun. He had taken on the Iron Tusk and survived, at least they could have tried.
No. They would have fought and died, just like Vallion and his men.
Ctenka staggered back through the courtyard as Josten tended to Silver’s wound. Lena and Castiel were still kneeling, still praying by the dried-up well. All around them the militia were recovering from the skirmish, some bleeding, some weeping. The place looked doomed.
As Ctenka approached them, the children finished their prayers and stood, turning to him expectantly.
‘Whatever you asked for, it didn’t work,’ Ctenka said. He’d had enough of trying to lie about it. There was no help from the gods here.
‘Yes it did,’ said Lena, as though Ctenka were an idiot.
‘Well, Silver survived I guess. So that was something.’
Lena shook her head. ‘No, Ctenka Sunatra. We did not pray for her.’ She looked up at him with those innocent eyes. ‘We prayed for you.’
Ctenka could only watch as the children turned, joined hands and skipped away to the edge of the courtyard.
Of course the gods were watching over him. How else could he have faced the Iron Tusk and survived?
Whatever gods those children were praying to, he could only hope they were listening when the Shengen army finally broke through the Hangman’s Gate. After that, the gods would be all that could stop them.
33
‘HOW much further?’ Livia asked.
They pressed on through driving rain so dense she could hardly see ten yards in front of her.
‘Not much,’ Durius answered. His collar was turned up and he’d pulled his hat down almost to his nose. Somewhere he’d abandoned his walking stick, proving it had only been for show in the first place.
‘There must be an easier way there than this,’ she replied, feeling the cold and wet creeping into her bones.
‘What would you have me do?’ Durius shouted above the torrent. ‘Summon a convocation of giant eagles to carry us there?’
Livia had no idea what a convocation was, but riding on giant eagles seemed greatly preferable to slogging through this downpour.
Glancing back she could see Hera helping Mandrake through the harsh conditions. She refused any help, though his head was becoming more fuddled with every passing step.
Just as Livia began to think this had been a
fool’s errand, they walked out of the rain and into bright sunshine, as though passing through a curtain. She looked behind her, seeing no sign of the downpour they had just endured, only endless open fields.
Durius took off his hat, beating off the rain against his thigh.
‘See,’ he said, motioning across a grassy glen. ‘We’re here in no time.’
Livia looked across the lush green grass, speckled with yellow and blue flowers. It rolled along for miles to the foot of a bright blue tower that spiralled up to the heavens. Of all the strange and wonderful sights she had seen since arriving in this place, this one struck her with the most awe.
There was a sudden cry of pain behind her, and Livia turned. Mandrake was on his knees, clutching his side as though he’d been stabbed. Hera held onto him tightly, powerless to do anything but cradle her lover.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Livia asked.
Durius looked on gravely. ‘Armadon must be in battle in the mortal realm. The Archon of War can endure any amount of pain, but it appears Mandrake cannot.’
‘We have to get to the tower,’ Livia said. ‘We have to help him.’
Durius shook his head. ‘There is nothing to be done, Livia Harrow. You cannot stop this, no matter how hard you try.’
‘I don’t accept that. There must be something that can be done. You don’t know what might happen once we reach the Heartstone. You said so yourself.’
Durius placed his hat back on his head with a sigh. ‘Very well.’
He turned and walked on towards the Blue Tower.
This time Hera accepted Livia’s help and they both carried Mandrake, following the path Durius led across the verdant glen. The closer they came, the more Livia sensed something emanating from the tower; a power lurking at its summit.
Detritus was scattered on the ground. At first a rusted sword discarded in a tangle of grass, then a magnificent winged helmet dulled by age. Soon the ground was littered with the scraps of an ancient army. Bones protruded from the soil alongside the desiccated corpses of huge mounts, all wallowing amidst the ragged and dulled pennants of some forgotten kingdom.