The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  Three avenues branched from there, one east, one west, and another straight north toward the center of town. Lorain had stationed two hundred of her Mountain Spears there, with another one hundred fifty positioned east and west. The men stood at attention, ready should the Krasians manage to breach the gate.

  At all other sides of the gatehouse, archers knelt by the windows. Those facing south fired in a steady stream, boys running to refill quivers as they emptied. The men looking out over the wall tops shot only periodically, but the fact they were shooting at all was worrisome.

  Leesha moved to the east wall, looking out as Wooden Soldiers and volunteers cut grappling lines and pushed back ladders. Here and there a few Krasians made the wall top, cutting a swath through the defenders until the archers picked them off. The Wooden Soldiers fought bravely, but the dal’Sharum were bred for this.

  Leesha took a breath, steeling herself as she moved to the south wall. Wonda took the lead again, speaking to Lord Mansen, the captain commanding the archers. The man glanced doubtfully at Leesha, but knew better than to protest.

  “Peers, you’re relieved,” the sergeant called to one of the archers, the man positioned by the eastern corner window.

  Wonda was at the window before Leesha could take a step, looking out to ensure it was safe. She pulled back suddenly, along with all the other men. Another boom shook the gatehouse, and debris flew through the windows, a heavy dust and bits of shattered brick.

  Wonda waited a moment, then peeked out again, coughing. “All right, mistress. Quick now, while they reload. And then we go.”

  “Honest word,” Leesha agreed. But as she looked out over the Krasian troops, her heart sank. Twenty thousand. It was a number she understood logically, but looking at the reality was something else entirely. There were so many. Even if they failed to breach the gate, those scaling might overwhelm the wall guards eventually.

  Gared, she begged silently, if ever there were a time for you to do something right, this is it. We need a miracle.

  The majority of the host held back, a huge cavalry and thousands of footmen, ready to charge should the gate collapse. Mehnding sling teams hauled rubble from the burned hamlets into the baskets of their engines. Most fired blindly into the city, but one had been hauled in close to fire with accuracy on the gate. Mansen’s archers were focusing their arrows on those warriors, but others stood with overlapping shields to protect the men as they worked.

  The Krasians returned fire. There was a shriek and a scorpion stinger punched through one of the Angierian archers. The broad-bladed head burst from his back as he was flung across the room, dead.

  Everyone stared at the ruined thing knocked all the way into the north wall. Leesha’s instinct was to rush to the man, but her mind knew it was pointless. No one could survive a blow like that.

  “If you’re still alive, quick gawking and shoot!” Mansen roared, snapping the men back to their work.

  Wonda shifted nervously, but Leesha ignored her, daring another peek from the window, looking at the ammunition the Mehnding were loading. Most of it was large chunks of shoddy masonry like that which had shattered against the gate a moment ago. If that was the worst the sling teams could bring to bear, the gate was safe.

  But even as the thought crossed her mind, she saw a cart being hauled in with a piece of solid stone. A statue of Rhinebeck II with a heavy base, the whole thing twenty feet tall. It would be the greatest test yet, but the wards would hold against even this.

  I hope, she thought.

  Yet even as the statue was loaded, the kai’Sharum raised his hand for the teams to hold. Archers continued to fire on both sides, and men fought and fell from the wall, but the heavy artillery halted.

  “What are they waiting for?” Leesha asked.

  She learned a moment later, when the windows all darkened at once as Krasian Watchers rappelled down from above, twisting through the narrow apertures.

  The men were all in black, carrying no spears or shields. They did not have their distinctive ladders, but Leesha had known Watchers before, and recognized them by their silence, skill, and exotic weapons.

  Several archers went down, kick-daggers punching into heads and necks as they tumbled into the room. Wonda barely yanked Leesha out of the way in time.

  Brief skirmishes followed as the Watchers cut the remaining archers apart like they were chopping herbs. Even when they fought in close, arms were flinging sharpened steel at the reserves in the center of the room.

  One came at Leesha, but Wonda latched onto him, and his flailed punches and kicks did nothing to hinder her pitching him bodily out the window. Famed for their silence, the Watcher screamed as he fell.

  Wonda whirled for the next assailant, but no others threatened them. Half the Sharum had already disappeared through the door to the stairwell, and the others were moving in that direction, killing any who hindered them.

  Leesha thought they came to remove the archers, but hearing the screams of men from below, she saw now that was incidental.

  “They’re going to open the gate!” Leesha cried, cursing herself for a fool. All the wards in the world wouldn’t mean a thing if the Krasians simply turned the cranks.

  Wonda had her bow in hand, and even in the close, chaotic space, put an arrow through a Sharum about to reach the door. She had another nocked an instant later, but another Krasian made the stairs in that time. She shot the third, but then a press of the Wooden Soldiers blocked her sight as they tackled two of the Watchers.

  Leesha ran to the north windows. “Krasians in the gatehouse! To arms!”

  The Mountain Spears did not budge from their positions, but Wooden Soldiers and volunteers raced for the gatehouse.

  They would be too late, Leesha knew. Already she could feel the floor rumbling as the Watchers raised the portcullis. Even if the Angierians retook the gatehouse and closed it again, the damage would be done. Even indirect sunlight could suck the power from her wards, rendering them useless.

  “Night,” Leesha said, rushing back to look back at the sling teams. They had the statue loaded, but continued to wait, appearing to stare right at Leesha.

  There are more Watchers on the roof, Leesha realized. They gave some signal, because the sling teams leapt to action. Leesha watched Thamos’ father flying through the air, and could only consider the irony that Araine’s husband should be the instrument that ended her rule.

  The entire gatehouse shook with the impact, roaring with the sound of splintered wood and twisted metal. Leesha stumbled, but again Wonda was there to steady her. The last Watchers had disappeared, barricading the door behind them. Archers, not always the heaviest of men, threw themselves against the heavy portal fruitlessly. It had been built to keep invaders out, but it served just as well turned on the defenders.

  She could hear the fight in the gatehouse intensify as the Wooden Soldiers desperately tried to close the heavy iron portcullis before the gates gave way.

  On the outside, a group of chi’Sharum were tasked with the ram. Leesha could not believe her eyes as the men, born and raised in Thesa, took up the great goldwood trunk while others surrounded them, shields held high to form a tortoise shell over the rammers. Despite the complex formation, they picked up speed as they crossed the open ground. Archers on the wall fired helplessly, arrows splintering off the shields. Men with cauldrons of boiling oil had been positioned on the gatehouse roof to defend against this, but the Watchers had taken the roof, leaving them defenseless.

  The boom as the ram struck carried the sound of breaking wood, and Leesha knew the gates would not last much longer.

  The rammers drew back, readying for another charge. Leesha looked down at the cluster of men below sadly. “Creator forgive you.”

  They charged again, but Leesha had reached into her basket and produced a thunderstick by then. She put match to it and threw, blasting the tortoise apart and splintering the ram.

  Men screamed, and when the smoke cleared, Leesha saw them, bloody
bits of humanity scattered across the ground like an abattoir.

  They weren’t all dead. That was perhaps the worst of it. Some wailed in such agony that Leesha felt sick to her stomach.

  These are the secrets of fire Bruna protected for so long, she thought, the ones she trusted me with on Gatherer’s oath to do no harm.

  And I’ve turned them into death.

  It made no difference in the grand scheme, as there were new men with a fresh ram making for the gates even while Leesha tried to keep from sloshing up. The gatehouse shook, and there was a cheer from the Krasian army as Jayan waved his flag, signaling the charge of his heavy cavalry, right through the city gates.

  Rojer screamed himself hoarse as Watchers scaled the gatehouse, but none could hear him so high up. Next to him, Sikvah stiffened, and he fell silent, hearing the sound of footsteps climbing the tower.

  Were they coming to free him, at last? Perhaps it was Amanvah’s demand for negotiating a surrender with her brother.

  Sikvah coiled and sprang, scaling the wall with handholds he couldn’t even see. In seconds she was back in the shadows of the rafters.

  The cell door slammed open, but though Amanvah was on the other side, she was not there to oversee his release. Her hands and feet were shackled, and from the bruises on the faces of her captors, she had not taken the manacles willingly.

  Amanvah was shoved roughly into the room, stumbling over her chains and hitting the stone hard. Rojer rushed to her side.

  He expected the guards to leave, but they pressed into the room, two, four, six. All told, a dozen men crammed themselves into his tiny cell, until it seemed he could not reach an arm in any direction without touching one.

  All were palace guards, like the ones that had struck after the Bachelor’s Ball, armed with heavy batons. Rojer knew their faces, but not their names.

  “Sorry for the press,” their sergeant said. “Minister din’t send enough men last time, but Janson don’t make mistakes twice.”

  “Should’ve known Jasin couldn’t pull that off without help,” Rojer said.

  “Jasin couldn’t pull his boots off without help,” the sergeant said. “Won’t say any of us miss the little pissant, but you’ve gone and made the minister very cross.”

  “You can’t possibly think you can get away with murdering me right in the cathedral,” Rojer said.

  The sergeant laughed. “Whole city’s eyes are on the gate, sand sticker, and it ent demons on the other side you can charm with your fiddle. No one gives a rip about you or your Krasian bitch right now. Your guards are all cowering downstairs, ready to barricade themselves in the crypts if the Krasians break the gate.”

  He tilted his head, leering openly at Amanvah, her silks pulled tight over her curves. “Not that I can blame you. P’raps the men can have a bit of fun before we cram you two through that little window.”

  “No!” Rojer cried.

  The sergeant laughed again. “Don’t worry about being left out, boy. Got a few men gonna be more interested in your arse than hers. It’s a holy house, after all.”

  There was a blur across his throat, as if a shadow had fallen across him, but then he was falling toward them in a spray of blood. Sikvah flitted like a fly across the room, stabbing another man in the throat as she used him as a springboard back into the shadows above.

  “Night, what in the Core was that?!” one of the guards cried. All of them were staring upward now, Rojer and Amanvah forgotten.

  “You all right?” Rojer asked her.

  “No,” Amanvah said. “I have reached the end of my patience.” Something about the words was more frightening than anything she had ever said.

  There was another blur, Sikvah dropping from above like a wood demon to put a blade in a man’s chest. She killed two more in the chaos that followed, again vanishing into the rafters.

  “That’s it, I’m getting out of here,” one of the men said. He and two other men ran for the door, but it slammed shut, the lock clicking loudly.

  “Janson wants them dead!” a voice on the other side barked. “You want the door open, get it done!”

  The men turned from the door angrily, but then Sikvah fell like a spider on the one in the center, shattering his spine. She hit the floor with a bounce, using the momentum to power the knives she stuck into the men on either side.

  “It’s the other one!” a guard called, and three of the remaining four leapt at her, swinging clubs.

  The fourth pulled a knife, lunging for Rojer and Amanvah. Rojer tried to pull her to safety, but the chain linking her feet was short, and she stumbled again. Rojer reversed direction, coming in hard and delivering a powerful snap kick from his sharusahk training into the man’s crotch.

  But his foot struck armor, and he felt something snap as pain blossomed. His bellow was cut off as the guard swatted him aside with his baton, lifting the knife to finish off Amanvah.

  “No!” Rojer didn’t think as he leapt into the knife’s path, shielding Amanvah’s body with his own. He felt the thud against his back, and suddenly there was a sharp bit of metal sticking from his chest, his shirt reddening around it. There was no pain, but he could feel the cold of the metal inside him, and understood, distantly, what had happened.

  Amanvah understood it, too. He could see it in her eyes, her beautiful brown eyes, always so serene, now wide with horror.

  There was a jolt, and the assailant’s hand fell away from the knife’s hilt. He collapsed dead to the floor next to Rojer.

  Sikvah began to wail, but like the pain, it was a distant thing. His second wife lifted him from Amanvah as gently as a babe. “Heal him!” she begged. “You must … !”

  “The chin took my hora pouch!” Amanvah snapped. “I have nothing with which to work.”

  Sikvah tore the choker from her throat. “Here! Here is the hora!”

  Amanvah nodded, moving quickly to block the window. Sikvah laid Rojer gently on the bed, then stripped off every bit of warded jewelry from her person, smashing the priceless items with the hilt of her knife. They gave her incredible powers, but she destroyed them without a thought for him.

  It was such an act of love, Rojer’s eyes began to tear. He wanted to tell her to stop, that it wouldn’t save him and she would need their power in the days and nights to come.

  Amanvah was with him, then, cutting away his clothes as if there weren’t a knife through him. As if there were something she could do. He was dying. Dying, with so much undone.

  There was a thin brush on Rojer’s writing desk, and Amanvah used his own blood to draw the wards, working quickly as more continued to well around the cloth wadded over the wound.

  In moments, she raised the hora, and there was a warm glow at his chest, bringing a euphoria that deadened his pain. Amanvah looked to Sikvah. “Withdraw the blade slowly, sister. The magic must repair his organs in your wake.”

  Sikvah nodded, and began to pull. Rojer could feel the blade moving, inch by slow inch, pulling at his insides and cutting anew. He felt it, body convulsing, but there was no pain. It was as if his body were a player, miming the act of dying.

  The bones in Amanvah’s fist crumbled, and Sikvah pulled the knife out the last few inches in a rush, immediately pressing a cloth against the wound.

  Amanvah moved to inspect his back. “His spine is intact. If I sew the wound …”

  But Rojer could feel the burning inside, and the erratic beating of his heart. He rolled to face them.

  “K—” The sound came with a bubble of blood that burst and spattered in Amanvah’s face, but she did not flinch, his blood mixing with her tears.

  He paused, gathering his strength. “Keep singing.” It came out as a gasp, and he fell back, struggling to simply breathe when there was so much to say. His wives each took one of his hands, and he clutched them with all his strength.

  “K-keep learning. T-teaching.”

  He looked off to the side. “Kendall …”

  “Husband?” Sikvah asked, and he sho
ok himself, realizing he had been slipping away. Darkness was closing on him, shrinking his vision to a pinhole, with a light at the end to follow.

  “Give Kendall my fiddle.”

  Leesha rushed to the northern windows of the gatehouse, praying the portcullis had been closed in time, but instead she saw the gateway spewing forth an endless stream of Krasians. The flow split around the fountain, hundreds—thousands of screaming warriors with long spears lowered like lances as they galloped toward the handful of Mountain Spears guarding the avenues.

  To their credit, the princess’ guard did not break ranks, keeping their polearms extended before them, as if any spear could hold back two tons of galloping horse.

  Captain Bruz raised his own weapon as the avalanche came down upon them. At the last moment, he brought his mountain spear down with a shout.

  The courtyard erupted in hundreds of explosions, like a box of festival crackers thrown on a bonfire. The air filled with smoke, and the Krasian charge broke against it as surely as a demon against the wards.

  Horses screamed, some rearing so far they fell backward, others collapsing in mid-run, throwing their riders to smash against the cobbles.

  The Krasian cavalry had no time to pull up. Those behind smashed into the front ranks, shattering bones and helplessly ramming their lowered spears into the backs of their fellows. From above, Leesha could see the impact ripple back through the charging horses until it lost momentum.

  There was one moment, as the Sharum shook themselves off. Some horses leapt back to their feet, often riderless. Many stayed down. There was a dazed confusion.

  KA-CHAK!

  The Mountain Spears worked a bar on their weapons and leveled them again, firing another deadly barrage into the chaos.

  The secrets of fire, Leesha realized. She had known Euchor had them—had seen the very plans for the weapons the Mountain Spears now fired.

  But she had never dreamed he would actually be mad enough to use them, or that they could be mass-produced so quickly.

  He had them all along. The thought was chilling, but it made sense. Euchor had always been hungry to become king of Thesa. Miln, after all, had once been the nation’s capital.