Gates of Stone

by Angus Macallan

  There was a loud, rending crack and suddenly the Dokra lay still, his spine snapped by his own dreadful contortions. His mate, eyes wild with grief and fury, got to his feet and walked over to the painted man, standing over his body. He stared at him for a few moments, then stamped once on his bloody chest. The man’s eyes opened and, looking up at his tormentor, he gave an awful, blood-rinsed grin, and said something that sounded to Farhan’s ears like, “Accept my sacrifice, lord,” and then he spat a thick clot of bloody phlegm on the Dokra’s white breeches. The trooper went wild: he kicked repeatedly at the man’s head, the heavy army boots thumping against his skull and the matted gray ropes of hair. Then, when the body tipped over onto its side, he began to stomp with all his weight on the fellow’s face.

  Farhan made some inarticulate protests and waved an ineffective hand, but he was as shocked and appalled as the remaining Dokra by the awful chain of events.

  Ffft. Ffft. Ffft. Ffft.

  Face. Right hand. Right side of the waist. Left thigh. Darts appeared all over the stamping Dokra’s body. He stopped kicking and looked down at the thin missiles now protruding from his flesh. He looked mutely over at Farhan—absolute terror in his last conscious gaze. But the merchant was looking beyond him through the trees to the dozen or so looming white-painted shapes, fast approaching, long pipes in hand.

  Farhan did the only thing he could: he flung aside his empty rifle and ran.

  CHAPTER 18

  General Jan Artur had not slept continuously for more than a quarter of an hour in the past five days. And he did not imagine that he would get much in the way of sleep tonight. He came into the warm cave through the heavy leather flap that covered the entrance and handed his snow-covered cloak and fur hat silently to his adjutant, Major Jodul, who hung them on the stand. The candlelight hurt his eyes after so long outside in the darkness. He rubbed his face, feeling the moisture on his bristles. Then Artur walked over to the big wooden desk and the mass of papers piled upon it and rested his knuckles on the hard surface and bowed his head. For a moment he closed his eyes and let his despair have full rein—a feeling of crushing impotence and sorrow, and deep anger, too, at the impossible situation he found himself in. Then he straightened up, opened his eyes, and his right hand groped for the earthenware flask on the desk. He gave it an experimental shake and heard a hollow splashing that told him it was nearly empty. That was the last of the marak. But he would not drink it now, he decided. He would finish the last mouthful when it came to that time. The time for him to terminate his command. Not before.

  “Any news from the south?” he asked.

  “Nothing you want to hear, sir,” said his adjutant glumly.

  “Damn it, man, we have sent four—no, it must be five couriers demanding, even pleading for reinforcements in the past week, and no reply?”

  “We were sent a party of twenty watchmen from the Fire Ministry. Old men mostly, and a few boys. I sent them to what remains of the 5th Ashjavati Guards in Sector 4. Thought they might make stretcher-bearers, although their lieutenant insists they’ve been trained with pikes and cutlasses and he says they’re eager to fight for the Motherland.”

  “Pikes?” said the General. “Against the Cossacks’ howitzers and muskets?”

  Major Jodul shrugged. “There is a personal message for you from the Prince Regent, too. This new Han fellow, Tung An Shan. I put it on your desk.”

  “Doubtless he is urging me to take not a single step backward. To die bravely to the last man and the last bullet for the honor of our glorious homeland, etc, etc.”

  “Very likely—that’s exactly what the last message from her said.”

  General Artur stiffened slightly. He did not allow his subordinates to criticize her. Even if she was, by now, several hundred miles off the southern coast of Ashjavat and sailing merrily for tropical parts unknown. She had given him his orders in a personal letter: to hold the line in the Ehrul Mountains and defend the northern border from the Khevan hordes. She had told him she was counting on him. And he had done exactly as she had ordered for the past ten days, with all the skill and strength he could muster. Part of him knew that he was being used, sacrificed. That she had fled to the ocean, leaving him to die. He also knew perfectly well that his sacrifice was in vain. His own scouts had reported that two Celestial Legions had crossed the unguarded eastern border of Ashjavat and were even now flooding into the plains between the mountains and the capital city. The Han battalions were now everywhere. He did not care: he had been given his orders by his commander in chief. Hold the line. Repel the Khevan regiments for as long as you can. She had said nothing about the Celestial Legions behind him. But he would obey nonetheless.

  He sat down heavily in the chair before the big desk. Looked longingly at the marak flask, and said, “Tell me it, then. Situation report. How bad is it?”

  Major Jodul glanced briefly at the piece of paper in his hand and began, “On the extreme left Colonel Kippz of the 3rd Foot reports a near mutiny. His men refused to counterattack the enemy trenches when ordered to do so, claiming that they lacked sufficient men and ammunition. They have a point. They have suffered nearly fifty percent casualties after an assault against them by the 13th, 16th and 17th Imperial Regiments yesterday. Powder and shot is almost exhausted. The men insisted that they must remain in their own lines and defend them as best they can. The Colonel considered hanging the ringleaders but reconsidered when the other officers had a quiet word with him and he allowed them to remain in their trenches on the defensive. In short, they still hold the line but are likely to crumble at the next assault.”

  General Artur nodded.

  “The center left is weak, too,” Major Jodul continued. “The Guards regiments have been mauled worse than any other brigade and are still under heavy mortar and howitzer fire from the enemy. But Colonel Harsi has them dug in deep, and he thinks they will hold if attacked. The center right is in bad shape, however, and there are still some alarming gaps in the line where our light companies deserted en masse . . .”

  Artur let the words wash over him, his mind refusing to listen to their meaning. His head was filled with the pictures of suffering he had seen in the past hour or two when he had visited the makeshift hospital just behind the lines on the southern slopes of the Ehrul. Hundreds upon hundreds of bloodied young men lying on the cold hard earth in the hospital tent, the temperature little higher than the frozen air outside. Scarcely any medicine, bandages or food, and men who were missing limbs or eyes, with their flesh lacerated and bones crushed, being comforted with hot tea and little else. There had been a pile of amputated limbs outside the surgery tent as high as his waist. And the bloody-aproned surgeons were too busy or too angry to speak to him. The sounds of pain had been inescapable: a low weird moaning coming from many throats, punctuated by the occasional wild, drawn-out hellish scream, quickly stifled lest it demoralize the others.

  Artur was aware that the Major had stopped speaking.

  “Is there any good news?” he asked, hating himself for this show of weakness.

  “A fresh consignment of boots arrived this morning, which should make some of the shoeless recruits extremely happy.”

  “Boots? Good, very good. And when do we expect the next Khevan attack?”

  “Anytime, sir. The scouts suggest that assaults so far have merely been probing attacks to test our strength. There are indications that they are massing their full strength in the center right, readying for a decisive push through the Alaaric Pass: Jaeger regiments in the van, then the Imperial Foot Guards, and finally the mounted Cossacks. It will probably come just before dawn—that is their preferred time.”

  Artur had a dirty, much-creased map open in front of him on the desk.

  “We can’t hold them there. They’ll punch straight through. And then there is nothing—nothing to stop them riding on down to Ashjavat City.”

  “We could withdraw, sir
. A tactical retreat. We pull back all our men and make a line on the Dniepali River. With the marshes on our left, we could hold them for . . .”

  “For how long? An extra day? No, Major, I appreciate your concern for the men but we stay here. How certain are you that the push will come through the Alaaric?”

  “Fairly sure, sir. In addition to the scout’s reports, the 1st Guards captured an Imperial trooper in that area and he said they had all been told to prepare for a full frontal assault.”

  “Can I speak to him?”

  “No, sir. He was—um—shot while trying to escape, sir. The Guards were very upset over the mutilation of their wounded in no-man’s-land by the Cossacks.”

  “Very well. This is what we shall do. I want the rest of the line abandoned—tonight, soon as we can—and every able-bodied man we have concentrated in the Alaaric Pass. A narrow defense but in depth. Get them dug in deep in the Pass and on the slopes on either side. If we can stop them here, if we can blunt their full assault, there is a chance that they will think again about invading Ashjavat. Tell the men that if we can stop them at the Alaaric, we may just save the Motherland.”

  The General knew that he was speaking utter nonsense. If the attack was halted in the Pass, and that was an enormous “if,” the enemy would merely curl around the now-undefended flanks. The Major’s raised eyebrows showed that he knew it, too. But what else could Artur do? He had his orders. She had commanded him to hold.

  General Artur’s eye fell on a package on the desk. It was addressed to him, his name spelled out in a virulent green ink. He picked it up and slit the package open with a long, wicked-looking Ashjavati fighting knife that he was using as a paperweight.

  He read the letter inside. He read it again. And then he began to laugh. A great eruption of mirth; hysterical, mad, unstoppable laughter.

  Major Jodul looked up from his desk, where he had been hurriedly scratching out the orders to the sector commanders for the new defensive position.

  “What is it, sir?” he said, smiling. It was good to see the boss laughing again. “The usual guff about fighting to the last man?”

  Artur still could not speak for laughing. He handed Jodul the letter, and gasped out, “You read it!”

  Jodul tilted the letter toward the candle, and read,

  My dear General Artur,

  I write to assure you that your gallant defense in the Ehrul Mountains in extraordinary conditions and against an almost insurmountable Khevan enemy has not gone unnoticed, and indeed will not go unrewarded. Neither have your pleas for aid fallen on deaf ears in Ashjavat City. I am very pleased to tell you that, now that the various disturbances in our nation have been quelled by our good friends from the Celestial Republic, I am at liberty to dispatch reinforcements to you, and this day I have given orders for four full Legions, a little over four thousand infantry, and three augmented companies of artillery, to come to your position with the greatest dispatch and place themselves under your command. I am also granting you, by virtue of this letter, a battlefield promotion to the rank of Marshal. May I be the first to congratulate you, Marshal Artur. Your courage in the face of adversity and the noble sacrifice of your men for our Motherland has been an example to us all.

  Yours, in deepest admiration,

  Tung An Shan,

  Prince Regent of Ashjavat

  “It’s dated three days ago, sir,” said Jodul, “which means . . .”

  “Which means that they could be here anytime now—we should be in touch with their advance units tomorrow!” The new Marshal was grinning like a monkey.

  “And the redeployment, sir, to the Alaaric Pass?”

  “Yes, yes, as you were, redeploy everything to the Pass. And with all possible speed—but tell the men, pass the word through all ranks, that help is on its way. I can scarcely believe it but, in truth, if we can hold them tomorrow, if we can just hold one more day, then the danger is past.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Some eight hundred miles to the south, Katerina stood in the forecastle of the ship Yotun and let the sea breeze blast her unbound blond hair straight out behind her. To the left and the right and a little to the rear, were Sar and Egil, the Yotun’s smaller consorts—the newly built ships all named for the legendary sky giants that the Khevan Emperors claimed they were descended from. The feeling of the wind on her face, and the occasional packet of salt water that doused her body and the simple, loose sea-green dress that she wore, and the sense of thrusting motion as the ship surged forward beneath her feet, made her feel thrummingly alive and somehow freer than she had ever been before.

  So far, she had achieved all that she had set out to do: she had her ships, she had the Celestial Legion, and by installing Tung An Shan as Prince Regent, she believed she had left herself a way back into Khev for the final act in her grand design.

  Only one thing still troubled her, and try as she might she could not dismiss it as an unsubstantiated anxiety, a silly, groundless fear: it had all been just a little too easy. From her repeated study of The Craft of Combat, she understood that overconfidence could be as great an error as timidity. So what was she missing? Her dealings with the Conclave of the Venerables had been astoundingly simple and straightforward: she had asked for what she wanted and—apart from a few minor quibbles, mostly thrown up by Tung himself, she suspected, for reasons of face—it had all been granted to her. This group of aged Han men and women, famed for their wisdom, foresight and ruthless cunning, had meekly acceded to a young girl’s every whim. Something did not feel right. What was she not taking into account? Did they mean her harm? She did not think so. They were allies. Quite apart from her gift to them of the Principality of Ashjavat, their interests were aligned: she would shortly be attacking and degrading the war-making capabilities of their greatest enemy on the Laut Besar, the Indujah Federation. Her expedition would advance their position in the region. And if they thought her a danger, and sought to remove her? What advantage would they gain if, say, they had one of the Legionnaires assassinate her in her bed? No advantage she could see. And even the best-trained Celestial assassin would have difficulty breaking through her screen of Niho knights.

  She turned to look at the tall, dark form of Ari Yoritomo, standing a pace behind her, his body swaying easily with the motion of the ship. Unlike his comrades, Ari had forsaken much of his armor as the heat had increased on their journey south. His face mask was gone, allowing her to see his easy smile and admire the blue depths of his eyes, and he wore only a black-lacquered chest-plate, greaves and kneepads, over a black silk robe. His katana was, of course, as always in the sash around his waist, and his right hand on its hilt.

  Yoritomo was not the captain of her Niho guards, as his father had been—that honor remained with Murakami—but it was clear to all that he was the knight most personally favored by her. Almost always now, he was given the role of her close protection, on duty a few feet from her all day and much of the night. The other knights, who ranged about her, investigating possible dangers, even tasting her food, did not seem to resent Yoritomo’s swift rise in her affections—but then it was difficult to tell what they thought, with their faces confined behind those menacing black masks. Perhaps they hated him. Perhaps they hated her. She would never be able to tell—and such was the faith that she had in their oaths of lifelong service that it made no difference to her. These men would serve her, kill for her, die for her, if she ordered them to do so. And whether they liked her or not was immaterial.

  But Ari was different—he was as dedicated as the rest of her knights but he had a warmth and even a sly humor that the others lacked. She watched him surreptitiously, looking at the smooth sun-brown muscled forearm that rested easily on his sword handle. She wondered what it would be like to touch his bare skin, to caress it . . .

  Katerina cut her thoughts short immediately. He was a hireling, he was a bodyguard
, and such self-indulgent fancies were beneath her.

  Instead, she gazed out over the vast, empty sea: somewhere out there, a thousand leagues away, five or six weeks of blue-water sailing, was the fabled Laut Besar—the warm ocean, surrounded by landmasses and studded with lush islands. She had dreamed about it since she was a little girl—a paradise of warm seas and white beaches, of amiable natives and easy wealth, such as could hardly be imagined: obat groves that stretched as far as the eye could see, mountains where gold could be levered out of the ground in great solid nuggets, tall forests of valuable timber, strong slaves to be captured in the remote highlands, spice plantations, rice fields, gum factories, rich fisheries . . .

  Ever since Katerina had first heard of the Laut Besar she had been determined to see it, and before long she had dreamed of possessing it. All of it. Somewhere out there, beyond the blue horizon lay her destiny. And now, beneath her feet, in the packed decks of sweating Han soldiery, and on either side in the other two warships equally stuffed with elite fighting men, were the means to make all her dreams come true.

  CHAPTER 19

  Pain. The first sensation Jun felt was a blinding pain in his head. He opened his eyes to utter darkness and wondered if he had gone blind. A few moments later, as his faculties returned to him, he realized that he was in a small space, packed in tight against several other bodies. His hands were bound. Thick, rancid-smelling rope, he discovered as he brought his wrists up to his face. It was hot and the air was foul. Someone was weeping, off to his left, a piteous mewling sound that grated on his nerves. His head was aching furiously, beating massively and agonizingly in time to his pulse, and he felt nauseous. He shifted his position and realized that his shoulders were in contact with, actually jammed up hard against, someone beside him; he also realized quite suddenly that he was almost naked. There was a rough wall behind his back; his spine grated against it. Probably brick. He needed to piss—he needed to piss very badly. His knees were bent up in front of him and he cautiously extended them and met firm, rubbery flesh and heard a growled warning. He pulled his legs back. The smell in his nostrils was worse than a piggery.