The Spider

by Leo Carew

  “Attack!” Roper shouted. Their enemy was distracted, and they had been given a chance. Together he and Gray led a wedge into the formation, most of the Sutherners too preoccupied to respond, their attention on the clinking, clockwork pillar of war that exuded dread like a poisonous fume. The guardsmen renewed their attack, Roper not attempting to kill but lead a wedge through the enemy ranks, and out from that suffocating corner.

  Before them, one knight had led a small charge against the Unhieru, thrusting a halberd into his chest. It made no impression at all on the thick chain mail, and the knight was catapulted across the square with a backhand. Still the Sutherners stood and died, Roper stupefied by their bravery. As the giant trampled into their formation, the uninjured Sutherners he left behind assaulted him from the rear. One knight thrust his sword into the chain-mailed back, heaving and twisting the blade two-handed until at last it broke through, sinking eight inches into flesh.

  He had the Unhieru’s attention.

  The giant turned its nightmare face on the knight. It tried to strike back with its axe, but for some reason its arm was now too weak to raise the weapon. It still managed to seize the knight’s helmeted head with a left paw, jerking it again and again so that the knight’s body left the ground and cracked like a whip; horribly flaccid as joint after joint dislocated beneath a wave of energy. But the Sutherners had sensed the weakness in their terrible enemy and swarmed upon it, thrusting madly with every weapon they had.

  Roper and Gray finally battled through the Suthern formation and back into clear square. “Go!” Roper shouted. “We must get to those walls! Go, go, go!” He held open the passage through the Sutherners as the surviving guardsmen pelted past him, streaming for the street that led to the walls. The Unhieru was howling, spinning around and at one point managing to shake the mass of Sutherners off it completely. But it had just a few heartbeats of respite before they hurled themselves forward once more, hacking and stabbing and tearing and chopping. A quarter of its broad chain-mail shirt fell away completely, blood sheeting beneath, and the giant’s right arm swinging uselessly by its side. Weapons dug into the vulnerable flesh and finally, the giant toppled, flattening another pair of watchmen.

  Roper stayed just long enough to salute the dying giant, before Gray seized his arm and dragged him away.

  They left the square, the shouts and screams of the Sutherners, the final grunts of the Unhieru, and staggered back into the dark. Roper’s chest was heaving, his throat so tight it felt bruised, but still he and Gray shuffled on, leaving behind that narrow escape, eyes on the shadow of the walls rising ahead of them. From the upper windows, the rain of projectiles began once more. “Just keep going!” Roper gasped, raising his arms over his head and staggering as a pot shattered on arm guards, showering him in china shards.

  He swerved to avoid a table that smashed onto the cobbles in front of him, and quite suddenly, the barking he had heard throughout the night swelled into a feral baying. Roper felt himself slowing as the noise grew louder, and then a pack of howling dogs tore around the corner before them: twenty, thirty, forty of the beasts, teeth bared and chains of saliva swinging from snarling lips. Roper heard Gray’s voice calling: “Dogs! Dogs coming!”

  Roper stopped and raised his sword, just as a fire-screen came down on his shoulder from a window above. He staggered a little, his sword dropped, and the first snarling dog had its teeth in his left wrist. It wrenched its head left and right, Roper trying to keep it at a distance while aiming a huge kick at the next dog, pelting towards him. He caught the animal beneath its neck, lifting it upright and cartwheeling it onto its back. But another had leapt over its supine companion and into Roper’s chest, knocking him to the floor. The first dog still had its teeth in his wrist and pulled at his flesh, while the other opened its jaws and went for Roper’s face. On pure instinct, Roper managed to get Cold-Edge across his body, jamming the blade between the dog’s teeth and holding it back. He could smell its hot breath, teeth held open just inches from his lips. Then he sliced the sword violently and the animal’s jaw was separated from its head. The dog collapsed, dead at once. Still the barking was deafening; the night filled with snarling fur and dripping teeth. He could feel another mouth fastened into the leather of his boot and worrying back and forth, while the guardsmen behind him swore and hacked.

  Roper lunged at the dog with its teeth still fastened on his wrist, hacking Cold-Edge down on its back. The animal dropped, but another had launched itself at Roper, teeth bared in a snarl. He was saved by a guardsman standing above him, who caught the dog on the point of his sword and pinned it to the cobbles. Roper dragged himself upright, trying to haul his foot away from the dog that still held his boot and swung its head back and forth as though he were a rabbit it was trying to still. He lashed out with his sword, and then when the animal would not let go, he tried again, cutting off its head. “Shit,” he swore. “Shit!”

  His hand was bleeding badly, and still crockery, pottery, lamps and furniture rained from the upstairs windows. One lamp survived the fall to the cobbles with its wick still lit, and a great pool of flame suddenly lit the street. The remaining dogs yelped and leapt back, Roper trying to leap after them but finding he was too weary. Instead he staggered right through the pool of burning oil, his boots flaming for a few heartbeats after he was past. “We must… get to those walls!” He could barely speak for coughing. The guardsmen tottered through the fire behind him, following the retreating shadows of the hounds, their arms raised against stools, pokers, buckets and pans.

  At the end of the street, at last, was the dark shadow of Lundenceaster’s outer wall. Roper wanted air so badly that each breath was a groan, but still he stumbled for a tower set into the wall and overlooking the breach. In the tower would be stairs, which they could use to finally get onto the battlements and clear off the longbowmen. With every moment they delayed, arrows poured into the enclosure that the Sutherners had created around the breach and legionaries died.

  At the base of the tower, three men stood on guard. They saw Roper’s band, and turned into the tower behind them, disappearing through the door at its base. By the time Roper arrived, the door, solid oak and riveted with iron, had been slammed shut and bolted. He tried first his shoulder and then a boot, but found it unyielding. For just a moment, he leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees and gasping for breath. The guardsmen reached him, several of them leaning against the tower and sliding to the ground, chests heaving. “We need a ram,” Roper managed, hardly able to get the words out through the pressure from his lungs.

  Gray nodded, sweat streaking the blood on his face and dripping off his nose. For a moment, the score of them that remained just breathed. Roper cast around for sign of more enemies, but the streets were empty. That was as well: their band was in a wretched state. Each man was covered in bites, grazes, bruises, and the filth from the breach. Gray, Roper and three other guardsmen had arrow-shafts protruding from their flesh. Two guardsmen had lost their helmets, one of them with the hair rubbed off his scalp in a huge bloody bald patch. Roper’s savaged hand was throbbing and did not move easily, and between that and his shot elbow, his left arm was good for very little.

  “There was a bench that might do for a ram,” Gray panted at last. “Thrown down in the street back there.” He and two guardsmen hobbled back the way they had come, soon reappearing holding a heavy oak bench between them.

  “Let’s go,” Roper said, tucking Cold-Edge into his belt so that its filthy blade would not contaminate the sheath, and taking one edge of the bench.

  “You are relentless, Lord Roper,” said Gray, a grin parting his filthy face. One of his teeth had broken in half. He took up the other side of the bench, two others behind them and a fifth guardsmen standing at the back. They retreated five yards, and then surged towards the tower door, Roper and Gray angling the bench towards the handle. The shock of the impact wrenched Roper’s shoulder, but the door burst open. Roper bounced off the stonework of the
doorway, while Gray and two others stumbled to the floor.

  Head spinning, Roper seized Cold-Edge from his belt once more, and stepped over the bench, into the tower. There was a man waiting for him behind the door, who lunged with a flashing blade. Roper, stunned from his collision with the doorway, completely missed his parry and the sword grated into his armour, breaking through its pocked surface and stopped once more by the bone. He staggered back and nearly tripped on the bench behind, kept upright only by a steadying hand at his back. Then he raised Cold-Edge, bringing the pommel down on the man’s head. Something gave way beneath that blow, and his opponent crumpled at once. Roper stepped over his body, onto the first stone step of the spiral staircase immediately behind the door.

  Another man waited in the dark above him and hacked at Roper with a sword. The staircase was appallingly cramped for an Anakim, and holding Cold-Edge right handed, Roper found his ability to parry was badly impeded by the central support of the staircase. He and Vigtyr had worked on fighting left handed and right, but with his palm savaged by the dog, Roper could not grip his weapon. But they had to progress up this staircase, and Roper began to climb, holding out his gauntleted left arm as a shield. The shadowed figure above gave ground, slashing down at Roper, who tried to dodge, and if he could not, deflected the blows with his gauntlet. Any strike that hit his arm was followed by a shock of pain from the arrow-wound, but he gritted his teeth and kept pushing. Relentlessly, he drove the defender back, and when he thought his enemy had misjudged a swing, Roper leaned forward and hooked his boot out from beneath him. The defender clattered down the stairs, and Roper stepped past him, leaving the men following behind to kill him.

  And now there was nothing between him and the climb. It was dark: so dark he could barely see the steps, and he had to twist to fit his armoured shoulders up the stairs. His legs were leaden, he was gasping and at any moment he expected to run into the third defender they had seen outside the tower, but he did not come. The staircase began to glow with orange light, and Roper knew he must be nearing the door that led onto the battlements. That was where he found the final defender, silhouetted in the doorway to the wall with a shield and axe.

  As Roper clattered up the stairs, the axe swung at him. He threw up his forearm to catch the axe shaft, gasping as that shock of pain ran up his arm once more. He held his arm up, keeping the axe hooked up high, chest to chest with his enemy and hauling in raw breaths. He gathered himself, sweat spraying from his lips, and then began to bully the defender back through the door and onto the battlements. With another agonising jerk of his left arm, he wrenched the axe from the defender’s hand to send it spinning off the wall.

  The defender had his shield pressed into Roper’s chest and tried to resist, but he was no match for the Black Lord, who used the very dregs of his strength to half push, half carry him backwards. The two of them, pressed intimately close, were now on one of the walls overlooking the breach. It was packed with archers who had been firing down at the legionaries below, but seeing an Anakim on the battlements, now turned their weapons on Roper. He ducked low, using the defender’s body as a shield and pushing him back until he collided with the archers standing behind. Roper’s shoulder was in the defender’s chest, and he heaved him back, crushing the Sutherners together until one bowman, teetering on the edge of the wall, toppled off and plunged, arms flailing, into the flaming chaos below.

  “With him, with Lord Roper!” came Gray’s voice, and he felt bodies press against his back, helping him drive the defender on as a ram, squeezing into the archers behind. The defender was squirming frantically in an effort to drop to the floor, but he was held upright by the pressure between Roper on one side and the bowmen on the other. The pressure built until Roper himself could barely breathe. To his right, the drop tumbled away into nothing and his band began to grind their opponents along the wall. They were packing the bowmen so tightly that they could not use their weapons, and there came two screams in quick succession as one was forced off the wall, dragging another with him as he flailed to stay on the firestep.

  “Heave!” Roper gasped. “Heave!” They pressed the bowmen tighter and tighter, until their enemies had run out of space. The pressure was passed along the crowded battlement, to the bowmen at the back, who teetered at the wall’s broken end, overlooking the breach.

  And in twos and threes, they were forced off, into the void.

  The resistance facing Roper alleviated dramatically as the bowmen stopped pushing and instead began to scramble for a good footing, each desperately aware of the drop they were being driven towards. Crushed together, they were forced off the wall and down, down, down into the breach. Some of them tried to scrabble out of the way, perching atop the crenellations, but were pushed roughly off the edge by the passing guardsmen. Roper could see the wall’s broken edge drawing nearer, the drop beyond, and suddenly feared that he himself would be pushed over it by the force at his back. “Halt!” he gasped, the drop five, four, three yards away. “Stop! Stop!” The pressure at his back lifted, with just one defender left in front of Roper. The original man, whose axe Roper had discarded, shield still pressed into Roper’s chest

  The Black Lord just pushed him. The defender flailed, fingertips scratching at Roper’s armour but, overbalanced by his shield, he twisted and fell, down onto the stones below.

  And then, too exhausted to move any further from the void less than a foot away, Roper fell onto the firestep, throbbing left arm hooked over the battlements. His limbs vibrated minutely with fatigue, he was soaked in sweat and he coughed harshly. “Gray.” The captain dropped next to him, one arm over Roper’s armoured shoulders, his head leaning into Roper’s. They panted together, the roar of battle beneath as though they sat on a cliff-top overlooking a raging iron sea. The hay-bundles below were burning out and now resembled smouldering coals, illuminating a bristle of arrows and bodies. There were still hundreds of legionaries penned against the breach, most of the fortified houses still spitting projectiles at them.

  “We must signal the advance,” Roper spluttered, gripping onto Gray’s wrist. “The legions need to come through.” A guardsman stooped to pick up a trio of discarded torches from the rampart. As his comrades leaned on the battlements, staring glassily at the turmoil below, he combined the torches, and by their joint flame, waved the legions beyond the walls to advance.

  A distant trumpet howled in response, and the drumming changed, rippling into a marching tattoo. Roper heard a cheer ring across the night, echoing off the walls and morphing into the “Hymn of Advance.” A glittering metal wave: the Pendeen Legion, began to roll towards the breach.

  “We’ve done it, lord,” said Gray hoarsely. There was wonder in his voice. He rapped Roper’s helmet, and then laughed wildly. “We’ve done it!”

  Roper could not feel anything yet, but it seemed tears were building in his eyes. His face began to warp, and exhaustion no longer seemed the primary reason for his heaving chest. As long as they controlled this breach, they could pump legionaries and Unhieru into Lundenceaster. They would still have to take the city, street by street. The defenders would fight to the last man, but with no walls between them and Roper’s forces, it was just a matter of time.

  Gray was right.

  It was over.

  “You realise what you’ve done?” Gray persisted, voice nearly failing. “What you’ve achieved? This was you, my lord. You got us here. You did this.” The guardsmen on the wall with them were embracing. One tore off his helmet and bellowed at the sky. Another dropped his sword with a clatter and fell to his knees, laughing.

  Relief. Cool waves of relief were flooding Roper as he sat on that battlement, overlooking the city. The air stank of smoke, but each breath of it was nectar. Roper began to laugh drunkenly with Gray, and he could no longer hold back the tears that poured down his face. “I don’t believe it,” he said. He found he was sobbing and laughing together, the pain from his wounds strangely sweet. “It’s over.” He hooked his wo
rking arm around Gray to return his embrace, and then found the tears were too strong and fell to weeping in the captain’s shoulder. “Oh Roper…” he cried to himself. “Now… Now you can rest.”

  They must have lost thousands already that night. Thousands more would die before the sun rose. But this was now inevitable. Lundenceaster was theirs.

  Suthdal was theirs.

  Over the buildings echoed the noise of drumming, of ringing swords and Anakim war-hymns. Roper and the beaming captain helped each other up so that they could embrace the other guardsmen, all of whom insisted on wringing Roper’s hand and thumping his back. “Well done, my brothers,” he gasped, smiling through the tears. “Well done, all of you. What an effort.”

  And though he was weary to his guts, and wanted to savour every last moment atop this wall, he found himself gesturing below, to where the dark banners of Ramnea’s Own Legion waved in the streets. “But we’re not quite done yet. We cannot leave the fighting to others. Once more, my friends? Into the streets, one more time?”

  Exhausted, his companions nodded.

  “Come, then. This may be the last battle we ever fight.”

  39

  The Suthern King

  By the time Roper reached King Osbert’s hall, the streets were deserted, and dawn had broken over them. He was limping on an injured calf, his shot and bitten left arm held stiffly away from his side, and a patchwork band of legionaries behind him. His face was grim as he climbed the steps to the hall. He pushed through the unguarded doors, finding an upturned mess of furniture within and several sacks of beans scattered over the floor, which gleamed like rubies to Roper. The only figure inside was a man in preposterously elaborate garb, who dropped an engraved silver plate with a crash at the sight of the Anakim. He backed against a wall, sliding down into a heap of robes at its base. Roper watched him dispassionately for a heartbeat, and the man closed his eyes in despair. Roper left him and advanced to a door at the end of the hall, the boots of his companions echoing behind. He pulled the far door wide and found a dim room beyond containing five men. Four were royal retainers, one of whom lowered his halberd at Roper as he stooped beneath the lintel. He was pale, and the other retainers showed no signs of resisting. Behind them, sitting on a throne and shivering like a soaked quarry, was King Osbert.