by Leo Carew
Roper stared at the king. He resembled the fat grub at the centre of a huge mass of wood pulp. Exposed, soft and helpless. This. This was who they had been fighting all this time? The gilt helmet on his head looked foolish as an upturned egg cup. A king should be a leader. A sorcerer: skilled in compelling magic. He must be able to speak words that resonate with his subjects and persuade them that their own wishes and their lord’s are in harmony. Roper could detect no power in this king that was not false and superficial.
At the expression on Roper’s face, the retainers backed away. One dropped his halberd, the others following with a clatter. Roper took two slow steps towards King Osbert. He remembered the rage that had overcome him after the sickness that infected the Skiritai: the boiling urge to destroy. He moved Cold-Edge forward, eyes set on his enemy’s face. King Osbert mewed softly, cowering into his throne, his lips working soundlessly.
A voice spoke behind Roper. “Discipline must never give way to possession. Ever.”
Roper turned. It was Gray, now standing in the entrance, looking over the scene before him. Roper gazed at him for a moment, his eyes consumed by pupils blown open in a grotesque exaggeration of attentiveness. He faced the king once more. “Is this possession?” he breathed. King Osbert mewed again as the Anakim words seeped through the room.
“Of the worst sort,” confirmed Gray. “So convincingly justified that you don’t even see it. You are your habits, my lord. Don’t let this become one. You do not unleash your rage on an enemy king, unarmed.”
Roper thought back to the months of starvation. To the brawl through these streets, and that horrid, lethal breach where the arrows had fallen like hail. “Think what this man is responsible for,” he said, eyes still fixed on the king.
“We were defending our future generations,” said Gray. “He was defending his home. Kill him, by all means. But know what you are doing, and do it for the right reasons. Kill him because we must take control of this island, and he stands in the way of that. Kill him as a message to those who resist us. But don’t succumb to your anger, even here. Even with him.”
Roper could not understand what Gray meant. All he saw before him was a creature so feeble and hateful that its death was insignificant. What pleasure did this soft, pale thing derive from this dark room, so insulated from the free, cold air; the sway of the trees and the flight of the stars?
“As you suggest, Captain,” he replied, lowering Cold-Edge. He nodded to the legionaries around them, who moved forward to seize King Osbert and drag him from his throne. The king began to shriek in earnest, moaning and flailing as he was gripped beneath each arm and dragged from the room. Roper cast an eye over the retainers, still standing against the wall, hands raised. “And you,” he said in Anakim, not caring that they did not understand. “You were sworn to this man, and offered no defence against his mortal enemies.” There was something sacred in that promise, even among enemies. “Take them too.” The retainers were also dragged from the throne room, and Roper and Gray were left alone.
Roper advanced to inspect the throne. An ugly piece of wood, divorced from the tree that had spawned it and humiliated with frills and vulgar gold. “Is the city ours?” he said, still looking down.
“Resistance has collapsed,” said Gray. “But the Unhieru cannot be turned off. They’re on the rampage.”
Roper only just restrained himself from saying: “Good.” People had to know. They had to know that if the legions were required to force their way in, there would be retribution. It was the law, as surely as sea follows moon. “But our soldiers have stopped?”
“For the most part.”
“Then we leave the Unhieru to it, as long as they don’t touch the food.”
There was nothing left for Roper here. He and Gray walked back outside, Roper eyeing the noble who still sat cowering against the wall. “Did you find Ramnea?” he asked after Gray’s sword, remembering him hurling it over the palisade to preserve Pryce.
“No, lord. I used one I picked off the floor for most of the night.”
The sun was rising, and the two of them walked the leaden streets in silence, passing wrecked houses and pockets of inanimate soldiers, torn apart by the extreme energy with which they had fought. A dead Unhieru lay sprawled in the street, head hacked from its shoulders with evidently desperate blows. A little further on, they came upon a site Roper recognised, where the residents had not just intervened from windows, but joined the battle on the streets with tables and ironware. It had been like fighting through a hen-coop. He observed that when men fought in armour, it held everything together. All that was left here were splinters of wood and bone, and a soft red carpet underfoot.
They came upon a band of legionaries, Roper searching each filthy face for friends who had survived the assault. Tekoa was there with a dozen Skiritai, and he and Roper fell wordlessly into an embrace.
“That looked rough, lord,” Tekoa said, as the two broke apart. “The breach. I saw the bodies on the way through.” He glanced down at Roper’s arm, caked in blood, and then his shot calf. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Roper suddenly found he wanted to talk about the silence that had come over him in the breach, and the strength he had drawn from it. But he could not think how to describe it in words that Tekoa might understand. So he just repeated himself. “I’m fine. Was it all right for the Skiritai?”
“The fighting was mostly done when we got through. It was just mopping up. Sturla’s dead, did you hear?”
Sturla Karson: legate of Ramnea’s Own. Perhaps the calmest man Roper had ever met, who had his own Prize of Valour, and had turned down a spot in the Sacred Guard to keep his legion. He had been at the front when they climbed into the breach.
“No,” said Roper quietly. “No I did not.”
Tekoa nodded and they stood in silence for a time, heads bowed. “Have you seen Pryce?” Tekoa asked at last.
Roper looked at Gray, who shook his head. “Not for some time.”
“Keep an eye open for him, if you would, lord,” said Tekoa. “I always fear for him. He can’t keep surviving, the way he fights.”
“I will.”
Gray and Roper moved on. The Sacred Guard seemed to have scattered itself across the city, and each one they encountered was a relief. They embraced, exchanged a few words and asked after those they knew to be alive. Many were reported dead, but nobody knew what had become of Pryce. Roper felt a growing dread as they moved on and the list of casualties lengthened. It seemed half the Guard had been left in the breach. Roper could sense Gray getting steadily more distracted as there was no news of his protégé, and he kept them moving, hoping to find him soon.
They did, eventually. He was not far from the breach, sitting atop an Unhieru corpse, his face covered in dried blood. He stood as they approached, holding out a sword to Gray. It was Ramnea, Gray’s own blade, which Pryce had somehow recovered. Gray took the sword and embraced his protégé, Roper following suit. Pryce still had the stubs of three arrow-shafts protruding from his chest. “Are you all right?” Gray asked.
“Stopped by the bone armour,” said Pryce. “I’m fine.”
“More heroics from you,” Roper observed. “If your actions on the palisade weren’t another Prize of Valour, they were close. I’ll need to think about it.”
“I do what I do,” said Pryce.
“I think the Prize of Valour this day would go to you, if anyone, lord,” said Gray. “I don’t know how any of us survived that breach, but we wouldn’t if you hadn’t been there.”
“Agreed,” said Pryce, lightning-blue eyes boring into Roper’s. “Nobody had the heart for that fight. I thought it would be the end of us. We were too weak. Too much kjardautha.”
“I almost got us killed as well,” said Roper.
His two companions observed him. “In the square, you mean?” asked Gray.
But Pryce was distracted. “Smoke,” he said, looking over Roper’s shoulder.
Roper turned
to see that Pryce was right: an ashen column swelling from the distant houses. “No,” said Roper, exhausted. “Please.”
“Do we even want this rotten city?” asked Pryce. “Let it take its course.”
“We want the food,” said Roper. “We need to get it out, fast. Gray: with me. Pryce: I’ve not seen Vigtyr. Would you see if you can find him? I think I have a memory of him falling. Or someone of his height.”
Pryce gave an impatient scowl and the suggestion of a nod. Roper and Gray hurried off, and Pryce walked back to the breach, half inspecting the bodies as he passed. There was no sign of Vigtyr and after a cursory glance at the mounds of dead in front of the breach, he decided it was hopeless trying to find him there. He could be injured, in which case he might have been taken back to camp. Pryce began to climb the breach, stiff and slow. Thousands of soldiers had passed over it now, and it was much more stable and better compacted than it had been the first time he crossed these stones.
He ambled back into camp, keeping an eye open for the big lictor among the cooking fires. But the camp was almost deserted. The first of those who had been extracted from the assault would be at the field hospital, further back. Pryce turned towards it, dragging his feet petulantly. He was diverted by the sight of Vigtyr’s new tent, standing alone among the burnt-out hearths. He crossed to it, slapping the canvas. “Vigtyr?” He fiddled with the toggles over the opening until the canvas was half-open, and ducked inside.
He was met by a scene of such order that he found himself quite arrested. He blinked and edged further in, faintly disgusted by the level of organisation within. Even the grass floor seemed to have been brushed so it all faced the same direction. Only the table in the corner was in a relative state of disorder, with a scrap of parchment on it that was not quite aligned with the corners of the wood, and an instrument of some sort that had splattered ink over the paper. Pryce advanced to examine it, picking it up to inspect. It was covered in irregular, but evidently purposeful patterns, arranged in parallel lines across the paper. A drawing of the sea? Then he frowned.
This was writing: the Suthern art of trapping words on paper. Pryce had seen it in the temple in Lincylene, where there had been a strange room, like a granary for paper. It had been stacked with vast scrolls, each etched in this same chaotic scratching. Vigtyr could write.
He opened his mouth in disbelief, suddenly recalling the Saxon Vigtyr had spoken in Unhierea.
There was a flapping at the canvas behind Pryce. He turned around to see Vigtyr half-crouched in the doorway behind, staring at him. Vigtyr’s sword was buckled at his side and he was totally uninjured. In fact, his armour was spotless, with none of the grime or dust worn by those who had passed through the breach.
There was a moment’s pause.
“Pryce,” he said, coming inside and straightening up. “You startled me. What are you doing here?” He glanced at the paper still clutched in Pryce’s hand.
Pryce held it out to him. “You tell me what you’re doing first.”
Vigtyr’s eyes flicked down at the note, then he laughed. “Oh, that?” he shrugged. “Just practising. It seemed like magic to me, being able to store words on paper. I’ve been trying to learn, but it makes me feel sick.”
Pryce nodded slowly, letting the paper fall to the floor. “So you’re the spy.”
“What? No, no, Pryce, you misunderstand.”
“What I understand, Vigtyr,” said Pryce, “is that if you don’t back out of the tent and lie down on the grass, I will cut off your limbs like the traitorous worm you are.”
Vigtyr glanced over his shoulder, and then stepped a little further inside the tent. “No, I don’t think so, Pryce,” he said, smiling faintly. “You’ve got this all wrong.” Pryce drew one of his swords, Tusk, and Vigtyr’s smile changed to something more confident. “I will not be threatened, Pryce.”
“You are being threatened,” said Pryce. “And now, Vigtyr, I am giving you your last chance. Unbuckle your sword. Lie down outside.”
Vigtyr raised his eyebrows and laughed softly, his own hand straying gently towards his sword. “I hoped I might get this chance one day.”
Before Vigtyr’s hand had even touched the hilt, Pryce lashed out, forcing Vigtyr to step aside. With a flick of his boot, Vigtyr hooked a cooking pot from its place near his bedroll and sent it spinning at Pryce’s face. He deflected it with a clang, and in the time he was distracted, Vigtyr’s sword scraped free of its scabbard. There was a pause as the two reassessed, facing each other across the tent. The tip of Vigtyr’s sword quivered, and then began to buzz. “You can’t beat me, Pryce,” he said, softly.
“I’ve heard that so many times,” said Pryce. “And somehow, I always do.”
Vigtyr raised his eyebrows, and that movement somehow made it surprising that his sword had already started sliding towards Pryce. The motion was so direct, so clean and so perfectly balanced in arm, foot and torso, that it would have skewered any man slower than Pryce. But the guardsman’s hawk-like reflexes preserved him, knocking the blade aside and responding with a hard slash at Vigtyr. The taller man blocked, and suddenly both were attacking hard, exchanging a battery of rapid violence with point and edge. The swords rang together, sparks bursting clear of each impact and a continuous shockwave oscillating the blades.
It was Vigtyr’s reach, precision and coordination against Pryce’s speed and aggression, and at first Pryce seemed on top. He was so fast and so fluid that he had the better of Vigtyr’s parsimony, pressing forward and forcing the bigger man to retreat and give himself more time. Pryce pursued him, the two circling the tent with Vigtyr in reverse, but aware all the time of the canvas walls, of the table in the corner he would have to dodge, of the need to step high over his bedroll. Pryce, even he; was not fast enough to dent Vigtyr’s defences, not while the taller man could still move and keep him at arm’s length.
Meanwhile, Vigtyr was learning. Nobody could beat him at this. Nobody. In his skill with a sword at least, he had faith. He weathered the early assault coolly, assessing his enemy, probing here and there to see what he was capable of, and memorising each response. It took him longer than usual: there was little pattern to Pryce’s brutal assault, but eventually Vigtyr thought he knew what was in his enemy’s arsenal, and waited for his moment. When it came, it was betrayed by a flash of gritted teeth. Pryce was about to launch his hard slash, and Vigtyr knew where it would go, and where he should duck. As he had expected, the bright steel sword swept past his ear, and with an economical twist, Vigtyr managed to move his blade across his body, into the path of Pryce’s wrist. Skin and edge met, and Vigtyr retracted his sword savagely, cutting deep through flesh and sinew. Pryce’s had flopped backwards, fingers suddenly senseless and unresponsive, and the sword slipped from his grasp.
Whether the sprinter had actually registered the wound was hard to tell. Before the damage was even done, his left hand had flown to his belt and drawn Bone, his second sword, which he used to aim another slash at Vigtyr, who was so stunned he barely parried in time. He was forced back, then again and again by his opponent. He had been so sure that the injury to Pryce’s wrist would conclude matters that he had not thought beyond it. His dodge had put him off-stride, he could not move as freely as usual, and Pryce managed to thrust him into a corner. The sprinter’s right hand was useless, but his left seemed to operate just as fast, and while he engaged Vigtyr’s blade, he aimed a kick at his knee. Cornered, Vigtyr could not step aside, and so was forced to take the blow, his teeth gritting as the knee jarred beneath him. The flash of white teeth seemed to be a signal for Pryce, whose next attack streaked at his mouth.
Vigtyr ducked out of the way, but as his head came down, Pryce’s boot swept up into his mouth in a hard kick. The sprinter was able to place immense speed and power behind the swing of a leg, and with a pop and a splash of blood, Vigtyr’s front teeth collapsed inwards. He moaned, eyes watering so that he could not see the next attack, which thrust at his breastplate. It punched throu
gh the armour, and had the blade been Unthank-silver, it might have gone through the bone plates and into Vigtyr’s heart. But it grated to a halt, and Vigtyr managed to push Pryce away with his free hand so that the guardsman staggered back. Pryce bounced forward without a heartbeat’s hesitation, chest to chest with Vigtyr once more, where he could supplement Bone with his brawler’s weapons of feet and forehead.
But Pryce had made a mistake. Vigtyr was now a few steps out of the corner, and despite the bloody mess that had been his mouth, and the flesh wound in his chest, he had space to move once more. As Pryce lunged forward, sword driving again for the weak-spot on Vigtyr’s chest, Vigtyr stepped neatly aside. Pryce’s attack was too wild, too driven by rage, and his opponent was out of the way and then past him, his sword slicing down on the back of Pryce’s leg. The blow carved through his hamstring, which sprang apart like a broken rope and reduced the sprinter to one knee. There he remained, exhaling hard, Vigtyr now standing behind him.
Jerkily, degree by degree, Pryce turned himself round on one knee so he was facing his enemy. Teeth bared, he stared furiously up at Vigtyr, who prowled the tent, spitting broken teeth and returning his poisonous gaze. “You are too thoughtless, Pryce,” said Vigtyr, lisping a fine puff of blood. “And that was too wild. You have been watching me too long. You must truly hate me.”