The Spider

by Leo Carew

  The Unhieru waited in the trenches; a line of them, drenched in chain mail and watching through their ghastly helmets. Behind them were the legions, dressed in their own plate armour and deathly still beneath the banners.

  The moment, when it came, was not one moment at all but a long string of them.

  First there came a mighty crack.

  A fine puff of mortar issued from one of the towers embedded in the wall, illuminated by the faint glow from the city and hanging in the air. Then the earth in front of the tower slumped oddly, eliciting a great black gust and three licks of flame from the smoke vents. In that flare of light, two dark cracks flashed across the wall, one either side of the tower.

  Then a long moment of silence.

  The smoke began to die, and Roper feared the sapping had failed and they had only weakened the wall. He had issued the Unhieru with ropes and grapples to haul on should this happen and, standing in the trench above Gogmagoc, Roper prepared to order their advance.

  He was stopped by another broken crack from the wall. And then another.

  And then, impossibly slowly, hard to distinguish through the dark but ultimately unmistakable, the tower began to tip forward. Like a toppling tree it gathered momentum exponentially: almost gentle and abruptly breathtaking. It landed in a thunderous crash, which Roper felt through his boots as a physical shock in the earth. A huge cloud of dust roared from the sides and rubble cascaded from the wall behind, slumping into a high breach.

  The breach.

  It was still thirty feet of uneven rubble up which the Unhieru would have to climb, overlooked by the walls on either side that the Sutherners would fill with bowmen, making the passage lethal. But it was there. It was time. Suthdal was within their grasp. They simply had to climb that breach, and take the city behind.

  Roper laid a hand on Gogmagoc’s armoured back and spoke into the dark.

  “Good luck, everyone.”

  38

  The Breach

  The drumming began; profound waves of it, thrashed out by the thousands at Roper’s back. Lundenceaster knew what was coming and it was time to appal it into submission. With an energy that caught Roper by surprise, Gogmagoc launched himself from the trench, chain mail jingling about his knees and long-bladed axe clutched at his side. He released an ear-splitting exclamation: a drowned marine howl which rang from the dark walls and brought the other Unhieru clambering out of the trenches after him. Led by their giant king, they began to lope for the breach.

  Roper watched with the Sacred Guard at his back, Ramnea’s Own behind them. Beyond the Unhieru, fire began to drip from the walls that still stood either side of the breach as the defenders tossed down burning hay-bundles. They were lighting the battleground so that their bowmen would have clear targets, turning the breach into a smouldering mouth, scattered with blazing teeth.

  The Unhieru were three hundred yards ahead, their roaring a distant, stag-like bellow, when Gray came to stand next to him. Dread prowled through Roper; his heartbeat indistinguishable from the profound drumming that filled the air. He turned to smile at Gray, placing a hand over his chest. “Whatever lies behind that breach, it’s better than this.”

  Gray smiled back. “Foolish, lord.”

  Roper drew Cold-Edge and turned to the Sacred Guard behind him, looking from one man to the next. “Are you with me?” Three hundred swords were pulled from their scabbards. “Then let’s finish this!” Roper turned for the breach, running over the wooden bridges spanning each trench, the guard labouring after him.

  They flooded the dark no man’s land before the walls, the top of which had begun to glow with the light of hundreds of torches as defenders packed the battlements. The bone trumpets blared, and Ramnea’s Own started after them, boots tramping in eerie synchrony and ragged banners swaying like fragments of the night itself. The legion droned into life, beginning the “Hymn of Advance,” and giving a cheer that Roper had not expected, which carried him forward.

  Three waves now marched for the wall; two big and one small. First came a thousand Unhieru, led by Gogmagoc: shock-troops, whom Roper hoped would overwhelm the initial defences and crush Suthern morale. Next the smallest wave: Roper and his Sacred Guardsmen. They would follow Gogmagoc into the breach and direct the attack, choosing their interventions carefully and coordinating the efforts of the third wave, who followed a few hundred yards behind. Ramnea’s Own Legion: the best of the Black Kingdom. Mostly proven veterans, seasoned with absurdly talented youngsters looking to make a name for themselves, and earn a spot in the Sacred Guard.

  They might be few, hungry, heartsick and exhausted, but they had energy for one final effort. Between them, they would seize control of the breach. Once it was secured, they could use it as a doorway into Lundenceaster. The legions would be pumped inside, interspersed with bands of Unhieru, and street by street, building by building, they would overwhelm this city. That was the task of these first few waves: secure the breach. Manage that, and Lundenceaster would fall.

  Far ahead, there came a whistling and a dry crackle as the Unhieru were spattered with longbow shafts. Roper quickened his pace, wanting to get as close as possible while the Unhieru drew all the fire. The night was filled with panting, the clank and bounce of armour and the thump of boots. A fog of shattered stone and smoke lay over their path, drying Roper’s mouth and stinging his throat.

  Gogmagoc had reached the stones of the breach and led his band swarming up the face, dodging the blazing hay-bundles on their path, arrows tumbling off their mail. The first of them were silhouetted at the top, against the dust that lingered overhead, stained a rusted orange by the fires. The Unhieru seemed to totter there, shadows frozen at the summit, before a dozen were hurled backwards. They spilt back down the breach in a trail of rock dust and rolled to a halt at the base, lying motionless. Roper faltered, staring at the dead giants. There was something terrible behind that breach. Something powerful enough to stop an armoured Unhieru.

  Whatever it was, Gogmagoc had ignored it and led the rest of his band on, over the crest of the breach and out of sight. Roper pursued him, the ground now prickled with arrow-shafts, but the bowmen on the walls still ignoring them. They were clearly too fearful of the Unhieru to bother with Roper and his guardsmen, who had reached the base of the breach. The giants were now hidden from view, and Roper set his hands on the shattered stone before him.

  He climbed.

  The Unhieru had managed to scale this steep face of unfastened rock, but they were enormous and powerful, and this first barrier was formidable. Each foothold slumped beneath his boots and unleashed a cascade of rubble, Roper making it five feet from the ground before his section of the face subsided entirely and he slid backwards. He landed on an Unhieru body lying face down, chain mail pooled about its bulk. He stood to try again, this time making it twelve, fifteen, eighteen feet hand over hand, before the stones slipped again and he tumbled back to the base. His limbs were heavy from prolonged hunger, and he took a moment to sit and pant. Guardsmen were swarming forward around him, meeting with equally limited success, one tumbling onto Roper as he tried to rise and knocking him back to a seat.

  And the arrows began to focus on them at last. Spitting, whipping and shrieking from the intact walls either side of the breach, they cracked off the stone and rang from their armour. Roper answered with aggression. He stood once more, gathered his strength and launched himself at the stones. He made it ten feet before the rubble began to slide beneath his boots once more, but now had enough momentum to climb free of the miniature landslide and on, skirting the blazing heat of one of the hay-bundles dropped from the wall above. His legs were leaden, and he was barely halfway up the breach. He was panting, his throat prickling, the dry taste of rock dust thick in his mouth, but he heaved on, outstripping all guardsmen save Pryce. The sprinter had adopted the same mad aggression and they laboured up, up together; heavy armour bouncing, thighs and calves burning, arrows cartwheeling through the air, neck and neck as they s
taggered to the top.

  They slowed together. For the first time, Lundenceaster was revealed beneath them: streets crammed with dark timber, wattle and daub. Mossy roofs slumped far beyond like a forest canopy. But it was the ground directly beneath Roper that drew his eye: a wide gap between the breach’s inside slope and the nearest of the city’s houses. It had been lit with a hundred blazing hay-bundles, casting frightful shadows from the swarming Unhieru. In that flickering light Roper could see that the nearest houses had been modified. Every high window had been expanded and now heaved with men crewing siege bows; each like an enormous crossbow mounted on a timber frame, spitting iron bolts into the grotesquely churning silhouettes below. Any space not occupied by siege bows was crowded with longbowmen who added their own rolling volleys to the deluge.

  Roper stood still, Pryce at his side, the two staring down at this scene. The Sutherners had known where the breach would be, and fortified and transformed these houses into miniature watchtowers. Between these and the bowmen on the walls above, arrows fell into this killing ground like hail. More guardsmen joined them on the crest, dust-stained, panting and staring down at the Unhieru bodies, scattered everywhere like burnt-out hay-bundles.

  Onwards, Roper.

  “With me!” he called, jumping forward. He clattered onto the rubble of the breach and began to slide down, accelerating out of control. An arrow bounced off his breastplate with a thump that knocked the breath from him. Another seared past his cheek, opening up a stinging cut. He was still plummeting, the skin of his palms scored and torn as he tried to slow his fall. The ground was rushing up to meet him and when he finally hit it, his legs crumpled beneath him in a cloud of dust, pitching Roper forward to land on his front.

  That saved his life. Just as he was getting to his feet, a bolt from a siege bow shrieked overhead and hurled back a guardsman staggering up behind Roper, punching right through his armoured torso and out the other side. The man’s body rippled with the shockwave, and he collapsed. For one moment, Roper thought it was Pryce, but then he saw the sprinter on his right, helping Gray to his feet.

  Caked with dust; aware of every inch of his unarmoured skin as arrows hurtled down around him, Roper tried to stand again. There came a deafening crash and a blast of energy swept over him, rattling chips of stone off his armour. A boulder, dislodged from the wall above by a defender, had smashed onto the slope of the breach, bounced and rolled to a halt less than a yard away. Two guardsmen were trapped beneath it; one by his leg, another his arm, both pulling furiously to try and free themselves.

  There was nothing Roper could do for them. He called Gray and Pryce to his side and ran forward with a little stream of guardsmen. They had to escape the exposed ground beyond the breach, which for some reason was still choked with Unhieru. Ahead of them was an alleyway between two of the fortified houses, which might offer some shelter. They weaved between burning hay-bundles and stampeding Unhieru, the air hot with fumes and thick with dust.

  Reaching the alley’s welcome dark, Roper cast left and right for an entrance. If they could get into one of the houses, they could kill the bowmen firing out of those high upstairs windows. He spotted a door and kicked at it, but it was unyielding; the other side evidently barricaded.

  He abandoned the door, limping on down the narrow street with his trail of guardsmen, and seeking only to get as far as possible from that breach. They turned a corner and halted suddenly. Before them was a flat shadow: a fresh palisade wall, blocking the street completely. Its top was lined with yet more longbowmen, and a volley of arrows swept into them. Roper was hit in the stomach, the blow knocking the breath from him. He turned back, scrambling around the corner with the rest of the guardsmen, but three were left behind. Two were dead, and another had fallen with them, each leg punctured by an arrow. Gray plunged back for him and was knocked flat by a second volley. Miraculously he stood again, preserved by his armour, and dragged the wounded guardsman back around the corner. Roper groaned on each breath, trying to get the air back into his lungs, and Gray laid a hand on his shoulder. “All right, lord?”

  “While you’re here,” Roper managed, straightening up. “No way through. Another street,” he gasped.

  They tried again, running back the way they had come and into the flickering ground before the breach. It was still crammed with Unhieru, and now some of Ramnea’s Own were tumbling down the inside of the breach to join the throng. As they ran, a guardsman beside Roper dropped with a shocked grunt, poleaxed by the feathered shaft protruding from the nape of his neck. Then another fell without a sound, struck in the eye. “Move!” Roper shouted, head low and arms raised against this ceaseless rain. He led his party left, passing one house before plunging into the next dark street. But this too was blocked after just a few yards by another fresh palisade, lined again with longbowmen.

  They suffered another volley and reeled back, out of the street and into the sickly light before the breach, where Roper was appalled by the sheer mass of bodies and arrow-shafts bristling the ground. “Another street!” he demanded.

  But it was blocked.

  “Another!”

  Blocked.

  Roper re-emerged into the space before the breach and ground to a halt, staring left and right. The Sutherners had transformed this part of the city into a huge net. Each street was blocked with a new palisade wall, penning the attackers into the space between Lundenceaster’s stone wall and the fortified houses. Arrows rained from their windows, and the inside of the high exterior walls, turning the net into a killing floor.

  They were trapped.

  Ramnea’s Own Legion were making the problem worse as they continued to pour down the breach, but able to advance no further. They pressed each other closer and closer until some could hardly move, creating a superlative target for arrows, siege bolts and rocks forced down from the walls above. But still they did what legionaries do, and obeyed.

  The attack was disintegrating, with even the uninjured now cowering behind whatever scraps of shelter this place afforded. What frightened Roper above all else was that he could see no faces turned towards him, begging for the solution. Their heads were down, covered by their arms. They seemed to have accepted that this was where their great quest to secure the north ended. In this arrow-smashed acre, where the only solution remaining to these exhausted soldiers was to stand and die.

  A siege bolt streaked into Roper’s group, picking one guardsman off his feet altogether and hurling him into two companions, bowling them over. “Get down!” Roper shouted. “Down, down!” He dropped behind an Unhieru corpse, pressing himself against its chain-mail side as a feeble respite from the arrows. Two guardsmen piled in beside him, huddled as tight as possible into the mailed flesh. One of them was hurled flat on his face, a siege bolt sprouting from the back of his helmet in a crimson spurt. His companion barely reacted beyond drawing himself tighter behind his feeble shelter.

  Now that he was behind the meagre protection of this corpse, Roper was not sure he could leave it again. His eyes travelled up the inside of the breach, wondering if they could survive retracing their steps, but it seemed so steep and was anyway still filled with advancing legionaries. They needed to signal back to the army that no further men should advance, but how, Roper could not think. To move was to die. The singing of Ramnea’s Own had ceased, but outside the walls the drums still rolled on and on, like monstrous barrels over stone cobbles.

  “What do we do, lord?” asked the guardsman next to him. “What do we do now?” Roper did not know. He could not see Pryce, or Gray. He could not see Gogmagoc. All he could see were crouching, cowering men; flames roaring above them; shadows licking over everything. It was like his very first battle. He was responsible for everyone here, and there was no good option to be taken. He raised his hands to his ears, trying to think, to shut out the roar of drumming, the arrow-strikes, the flames, the Unhieru.

  It was only after a dozen heartbeats had thumped past that he realised everything had gone
quiet. The breach was still.

  Roper raised his head. Arrows still flickered across his vision, but they had lost their sting. The cries of his legionaries and the heaving Unhieru made no impact on Roper.

  Silence.

  After months of struggling, it was a tool he could use as easily as the sword clutched by his side. It was just as Gray had said: You are your habits.

  Roper saw clearly across the breach, gaze settling on the grappling hook dangling off the belt of the Unhieru body he crouched against. He took the grapple and stood.

  It was like trying to advance into a storm-driven sea: battered and bludgeoned at once by wave after wave of projectiles. Chips of stone stung his cheeks, and he could barely see, so tightly screwed were his eyes. “Follow me!” he shouted over the crack of arrows. “Follow me! With me, if you can move! With me!”

  He could no longer feel his rattling heart or the dread in his chest, both sealed out by silence. He was still weary to his bones, but he had to advance into these arrows, and he did, wooden shafts splintering beneath his boots and two hitting his armour obliquely, making him stagger and leaving deep gouges in the steel.

  Around him, men began to crawl and stumble to his voice, rising against the horror. “Grapples!” Roper called. “Bring grapples!” They were snatched from dead Unhieru, and Gray arrived at Roper’s side, carrying one in his right hand, his left forearm impaled with an arrow. He rapped his fist on Roper’s shoulder, and Roper seized his hand fiercely. “I’m glad I have you, brother,” he said.

  “As long as I am possibly able, lord,” said Gray. Together, a crouching, flinching shamble of guardsmen and legionaries in their wake, they crowded down the nearest street.

  “You!” Roper roared at two Unhieru cowering beneath the walls of a fortified house. “With us!” They swung upright, reinforcing their band.