The Immortal Throne (2016)

by Stella Gemmell

  It had been a trap, of course, this Battle of the Vorago. Long in the making, young Weaver reckoned. Longer, much longer than he knew. Thousands dead. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. What had happened to the Petrassi army that marched back after the Day of Summoning? Were they all dead? Who had laid this plan, what mind, what force of ill-will, had laid this plan and for what end? Marcellus? No, this long predated the Day of Summoning. There was only one he could think of, Hammarskjald, but he was long dead. They’d seen him die, then saw his body burn on a pyre. Good riddance, Giulia had said that day. He could still see her now, her face lit by the funeral flames, eyes shining with pleasure.

  Marcus had had wives aplenty, all dead, some mouldering for centuries now. None of them came close to his sister. She was the strongest person he had ever known, the most beautiful, and he hoped he would see her again. But his faith had dwindled over the centuries and he feared it unlikely. Their father Sikander Khan was a man of strong belief in the One God and he raised his two children as such, but a thousand years is a long time to nurture a faith and Marcus’ had faltered and died a long time past. And yet, if anyone could hold a lingering belief in immortality it must be a Serafim.

  Dying, Marcus feared they had all gone to dust and ashes, his father and mother and all the best of those who had come to this world to give it the gift of their knowledge and ingenuity and had brought it … what?

  In that moment Giulia was sitting on the balcony of her solar in the balmy afternoon. She sat in her habitual comfy chair, watching the north and west, watching the route she knew her brother would take back home to her once his duty was done.

  And she was wondering, as ever, about Fiorentina. The woman’s pregnancy was news of the greatest magnitude. No one knew reflections could sire or bear children. It was thought impossible. It had never happened, that she knew of, in a millennium. And if it were possible it could change the balance of power in the City, in the world. But with Araeon and Marcellus both dead, there remained only a handful of them who could raise reflections. Neither she nor Marcus had the power. Never had. Reeve did, though he had not done so, so far as she knew, for more than five hundred years. His children, Rubin and Indaro? Impossible to know. The Gaetas, Sciorra and her brood? Sometimes the talent skipped a generation. Archange’s descendants were, as ever, an unknown quantity.

  Giulia’s first thought when she’d heard, the most obvious one, was that the foetus growing in the girl’s belly was not Rafael’s. Fiorentina had not the reputation of a whore, like her sister, but neither was she a shrinking flower. She had flaunted herself, danced and partied, always on her husband’s arm, with a smile for everyone. What was more likely, Giulia thought: that a common party girl had deceived her husband, or that the lore laid down by the Serafim for a thousand years was … just plain wrong? So she had summoned Rafe Vincerus’ servants, those who had survived the Day of Summoning, and questioned them. Fiorentina was faithful, they all said, and they all believed it, for one of Giulia’s Gifts, poor and vestigial though it was, was to discern the truth in the hearts of men and women.

  And, she wondered, her thoughts darting around like summer swallows, what would such a child be like, the child of a living woman and a walking corpse? Would it even survive to birth?

  Squinting, she could discern a blur on the horizon. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes. Was it a small cloud, or something wrong with her sight? The blur quickly grew. She expected to hear thunder, as if it were racing towards the Shield at the speed of sound. Then she felt a sharp pain in her breast and she bent forward and closed her eyes. When she looked up again the sky to the north was dark and ominous, heavy with fate. In a moment of prescience she knew her world was ending: her brother was dying. The pain in her chest blossomed and she cried out. Grasping the arms of the chair she tried to stand.

  She was aware of the door flying open and servants rushing in as she fell blindly to the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ON THE EDGE of the Vorago battlefield Hayden Weaver lay as if dead, protected to the last by his old friend Rosteval, who had died on an enemy lance which pierced his mighty heart. The warhorse had fallen on the instant, pitching Hayden on to a pile of City corpses. Dazed, he had crawled back to the beast and, finding him dead, had passed out, exhausted and heartsick.

  Slowly Hayden raised himself to sitting, checked his arms and legs for breaks or major wounds, then, leaning on the cooling body of Rosteval, he levered himself to his feet and looked around. He could see poorly and he fumbled in his jacket for his spectacles. Inside their sturdy box they were broken, the glass shattered. He sighed. There was no help for it. He would have to make do without them. He rubbed the blood from his eyes.

  The first thing he saw was the body of Marcus Rae Khan. He had been hacked and torn by many wounds, any one of them fatal to an ordinary man. Hayden had known Marcus for nigh on thirty years. As opposing generals they had sat through many a night conference, seeking ways to end carnage, always failing. And in the last few years he had come to know him as a fellow-conspirator in the taking of the City, and lastly as a friend and comrade-in-arms. In all those years Marcus had not changed an iota, and Hayden had come to believe the tales about the long lives and tough constitutions of City soldiers.

  Now thousands of those soldiers, however tough, were dead on a field of battle that stretched across twenty leagues or more on the east of the chasm. The Fourth Battle of the Vorago in the chronology of the City, he thought. Will anyone, but for the enemy, be able to tell its story to the City’s historians? He was surrounded by corpses and the dying as far as the eye could see, and a few injured men and women staggering around looking for friends.

  Hayden struggled to remember how the City dealt with its dead.

  ‘You,’ he asked a passing soldier, a tall, skinny fellow with red eyes which wanted to look both ways at once. ‘Do you bury your heroes or burn them?’

  The soldier seemed as bemused as he was, and just stared at him, open-mouthed, then at the dead man at his feet.

  ‘Is that the general?’ he asked.

  ‘It is Marcus Rae Khan, dead in the service of the City.’

  ‘General Marcus! Oh gods, what will become of us?’ the man asked, shaking his head.

  Irritated, Hayden said, ‘You will gather together and march back to your city in good order. But first,’ he added, ‘you will send your general on with the respect he deserves. Is burning the respectful way to honour your hero?’

  The man nodded uncertainly, staring at the body, while more soldiers came wandering up, bandaged and bloody.

  ‘Who are you then?’ one of them asked suspiciously, hearing the question and looking the Petrassi general up and down.

  They were right to be wary. ‘My name is Hayden,’ he replied, ‘an old comrade of the general’s.’

  Another said, ‘Lost your horse, didn’t you?’

  Hayden nodded. ‘Now,’ he told them briskly, ‘find wood. There’s a copse over there. We will build a pyre. For a great man died today.’

  ‘Who are you to give us orders?’ asked the suspicious one, but the other survivors started trailing away, glad of orders, any orders.

  Hayden sat down beside Marcus, overcome by exhaustion and, possibly, blood-loss. In the last year he had allowed himself to hope – to hope his country would be restored, that he would be with his family again and he could retire to enjoy the remainder of his life in peace. Now, in the wink of an eye, he had lost his country, his family, his army and his comrade-in-arms. He knew that whatever future he had left lay with the City, for good or ill.

  ‘I am responsible for this,’ he told Marcus, leaning in to make his confession. ‘In every way possible I have condemned the City. I left Petrus to be pillaged by barbarians. Then I did exactly the same to the City. And I walked into a simple trap. And,’ he admitted, ‘you were right, my friend. You were right all along. I thought we were dealing with barbarians from the savage north, barbarians in furs wavi
ng cudgels. We would sweep them from our lands by the year’s end. That was,’ he defended himself, ‘what I was told. Messages from Petrus spoke of yellow-headed savages. But you were right, these might be savages, but they are not under the orders of some barbarian chief. They have better technology than ours, and cannon and gunpowder. And now they are heading for the City and will trample over it. And it’s completely vulnerable, thanks to me.’

  Wearily he levered himself up again, thinking, I must warn them. I must warn Archange.

  ‘Horsemen!’ he shouted to some soldiers listlessly piling branches. ‘I need horsemen! I have messages to send!’ They stared at him indifferently, helpless to follow his orders. For there were no horsemen. No horses. They were all dead.

  By the late afternoon, Stern and his brother had gathered thirty or more survivors, among them Quora who but for her helm would be dead from a blow to the head. She could barely see for the pain, and Stern watched her anxiously, knowing head injuries could often end in sudden death. She lay by their scrappy campfire, her eyes closed, her face pale as water.

  ‘Thirty-two,’ Benet announced. ‘All with wounds. Sixteen walking, if you include Quora. The others,’ he wagged his head in a display of uncertainty, ‘might be able to march in a few days.’

  ‘Officers?’

  ‘No chance.’ Benet sniffed contemptuously. He had no time for officers who, he believed, quite rightly, had it in for him.

  ‘Well, we can’t go anywhere tonight,’ Stern told him. ‘Have you found any food?’

  ‘Some. Most of it dried. Some of it … well, I don’t know what it is. Foreign muck.’ Benet spat on the ground.

  ‘As long as it doesn’t poison us. Tell everyone to eat their fill. We’ll have to head out first thing,’ Stern said, thinking that the myriad corpses would soon start ripening. ‘Tell them they march at sunrise or stay here alone.’

  ‘If we stay here we might find more wounded,’ Benet suggested.

  We don’t want to find more wounded, Stern thought. We want to find more warriors fit to fight. The fate of the injured men and women was weighing on him. It was a proud boast of the Pigstickers that they never left a comrade behind, although in reality they were forced to often enough. He thought of the officer whose agonized death at the hands of the Fkeni their ears had witnessed. Rescuing him would have doomed them all, and struggling now to carry wounded comrades who could not walk, and who would probably die anyway, would condemn Stern and the other survivors. It was harsh but true. If they could not keep up, they would be left behind.

  He watched the survivors moving around, some of them limping, seeking food and water and rifling corpses for medical kit – clean bandages, salves and needles. From time to time a knife would be drawn and a weak grasp on life ended.

  Between conflicts there were plenty of volunteers for the prestige of leadership. Soldiers were happy to tell their peers when to eat or sleep, who should watch at the top of the wall and who sleep at its base. But at times of mortal peril, when each decision could mean life and death, fewer hands were raised to claim the role. Soldiers were, by definition, followers. They had been trained to follow orders. Promotion, Stern thought, brought you nothing but trouble. None of the generals he knew of were promoted from the ranks; they were all rich and powerful men who chose to lead an army. Even Marcus Rae Khan, who was admired by his troops, had a choice between serving his City on the battlefield or sitting in some golden palace with a battalion of concubines at his beck and call. The highest promotion a common soldier could get was company commander, and no one wanted that, stuck between the grunts on the ground and the generals, half warrior, half politician.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  He looked round. Quora was watching him from her cocoon of dirty blankets.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Better,’ she said, her eyes shifting away, and he knew she was lying. She did not want to be left behind.

  ‘What are you going to do when this is over?’ Quora asked him. This was a safe haven for conversation when times were hard.

  ‘I’m going back to Adrastto,’ he told her. ‘Now it’s no longer in enemy hands.’

  ‘To your mother?’

  ‘Yes. If she lives. I’ll give up soldiering and go home.’ He had lost count of the number of times he had said that over the years. But now he no longer knew what he was fighting for, or who their enemies were, perhaps it would prove true.

  ‘Benet can’t fight any more,’ she said quietly.

  A stab of fear caught Stern in the belly. Quora had said what he’d been aware of: his brother was nearly blind now. He did not know even his friends’ faces. He was trying to hide it, but it was clear to them all. He was unlikely to survive another battle, had only survived this one by a fluke.

  ‘I have no one to go back to,’ Quora said sadly. He knew that too. That was why she feared the empress’s threat to bar women from the armies. She had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘To Adrastto?’ There was eagerness in her voice.

  Stern was idly casting his eye over his small troop, a ragtag army of the walking wounded. He frowned and stood up.

  ‘You.’ He pointed at a ginger-haired soldier crouched over a campfire, his shoulders wrapped in a black and silver jacket. ‘Where did you get that jacket?’

  The man looked up at him and it was all Stern could do not to flinch. He had seldom seen a worse facial wound on a living man. The soldier had been chopped across the face, perhaps by an axe, some years before, and the skin had been torn off then roughly reattached. One eye was gone, and the nose, and his mouth was set in a permanent sneer showing gaping gums. There was a dent the size of a fist in his forehead.

  ‘Off a corpse. What’s it to you?’ the man snarled.

  ‘City corpse?’

  The man nodded. ‘But he won’t need it.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  The man stared at the fire again. ‘Don’t remember,’ he muttered.

  Stern strode over to him and dragged him to his feet. The soldier was half a head taller than him but skinny. His eyes a hand’s width from the nightmare face, Stern roared, ‘Tell me what he looked like, you bastard, or I’ll drag you round this pigging battlefield till we find him!’

  ‘Grey-beard,’ the soldier remembered. ‘Veteran.’

  Stern let him go and the man stood there angrily, debating whether to get into it. Then all the fight suddenly went out of him and he sat down again. Stern walked back to Quora, who had been watching.

  ‘That’s Broglanh’s jacket,’ he said, sitting down again.

  ‘He’s probably dead,’ she replied quietly. ‘It would be a miracle if he’d survived.’

  ‘We’d have found his body. And Stalker’s,’ Stern argued. ‘They were fighting right beside us.’

  Quora shook her head. ‘Benet could have walked past them. Anyway, sometimes it’s hard to recognize, you know, one of your friends.’ Chopped up like meat on a butcher’s slab, she meant.

  ‘I can’t believe Stalker’s dead.’

  ‘He disappeared early in the battle,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he ran off.’ She rolled on her back, wincing. ‘Where are we heading tomorrow?’

  ‘Home, to the City.’

  ‘Do you know the way?’

  ‘East.’ He pointed with a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘Over those mountains. Then south-east to the big river.’

  ‘We came through that mountain pass,’ she said. ‘Where the Fkeni were. Can you find it again from this side?’

  He looked east where thick haze obscured the mountains they had crossed. Could he even see them from here? He couldn’t remember. Everything before the battle was tiny and distant. Suddenly the task ahead of him seemed impossible.

  He shook his head sheepishly. ‘I’m hoping we meet someone who does know the way,’ he confessed. ‘There’ll be other survivors, plenty of them, all going the same wa
y. Officers.’

  ‘You don’t like officers.’

  ‘I do if they can get us home.’

  One of the soldiers stood and Stern glared at him. It was the one with Broglanh’s jacket and the scrambled face. He was pointing west.

  ‘Look! Fire!’ he said.

  ‘We’ve got a fire,’ Quora replied tiredly, but Stern turned to look.

  ‘That’s a big fire,’ he said.

  By sun-up the next day more than one hundred and ninety City warriors had gathered at Hayden’s encampment, drawn by the beacon of the funeral pyre. Some would go no further and their future was bleak. Most were strong enough to march, though their progress would be slow. And a handful appeared to have been nowhere near a fight. Hayden suspected that some were runners who had seen the pyre and decided to come back now it was safe, others who had hidden, perhaps in the Vorago, perhaps just playing dead until the battle was ended. He did not judge them, but it would be useful to know who they were.

  For himself, he was in an awkward position. He could not lie about his identity. None of the survivors here knew who he was but it was likely, as they made their way back to the City, they would meet others who did. He was trusting that the soldiers’ lack of curiosity would be his ally. So far they had succumbed automatically to his manner of command. If those present considered him their general, others they met were likely to fall into line.

  He stood at the edge of the Vorago, looking out over the chasm to his homeland. In truth, he knew the lands of the City far better than he did Petrus. When he turned his back on it, he knew it would be for the last time. His latest letter to Anna had been despatched five days before. A few more missed days and she would think him dead. A great feeling of loss came over him. If Anna thought him dead, then might he not as well be?