The Immortal Throne (2016)

by Stella Gemmell

  But City warriors were backing away in good order. ‘Come on, you fool!’ one man growled, grabbing Rubin by the arm.

  ‘But Marcellus?’ he shouted, struggling to get free, for his lord stood alone, showing no sign of retreating. He was fighting like a demon, his two swords flashing faster than eye could follow or the mind comprehend. Still the enemy came at him and still they died.

  ‘Marcellus can take care of himself,’ the soldier grunted. He was a dark and dour veteran who had fought beside Rubin for much of the day. He was limping heavily as he dragged Rubin away.

  Marcellus fought on, a colossus in blood-red armour, his opponents falling to his blades which flickered like flames. Then slowly the fighting around him began to falter. Orders were bellowed from deep within the enemy ranks and those surrounding Marcellus looked around, seeming undecided, confused. Some started to back away. A strange, ominous silence spread through the two armies under the lowering sky.

  Rubin was being dragged back, still struggling, when he felt a crippling pain skewer the base of his skull. Within moments he was barely able to see and he stopped resisting and stumbled to join his comrades retreating north. As he moved away the agony in his head faded. Finally his companion halted and Rubin turned to watch.

  Around Marcellus enemy warriors were falling to the ground, clutching their heads and screeching. Others were throwing themselves back into the bloody ditch, frantic to escape. Marcellus stood tall among them, weaponless now. He had thrust his two swords into the earth and was standing, gauntleted hands raised, facing the enemy.

  Rubin watched with awe and horror as blood began gouting from the eyes and mouths of those closest to his lord. The blood did not fall but swirled through the air, its droplets forming a whirling vortex with Marcellus as its centre. Then, to his disgust, an enemy soldier’s head exploded like overripe fruit. Another’s chest was torn apart as if by unseen talons, gouts of flesh flying through the air. Marcellus disappeared within the spinning maelstrom of blood and flesh and shattered bone.

  The tattooed warriors were fighting each other to get away, trampling over the bodies of their fellows, alive or dead, fleeing as fast as they were able. Some City warriors cheered but Rubin felt only revulsion.

  The bloody vortex collapsed, drenching the ground, and Marcellus was revealed, armour dripping, surrounded by piles of dead bodies and butchered body parts. Rivers of gore were flooding into the corpse-laden ditch. Marcellus tore off his helm then turned and looked back at his warriors, triumphant. Released, they raced forward, back to the lip of the ditch where they had begun the day, slipping and sliding in the grisly remains.

  Rubin followed more slowly. An invisible miasma of blood and guts hung in the air. He could feel it coating his eyeballs, invading his nose and mouth, sucked in with every weary breath. His head spun and nausea rose suddenly. He leaned forward and vomited on to the mud and blood. He wiped his mouth, then, straightening up, saw his lord waving him over, grinning.

  Marcellus’ teeth shone in the wet crimson of his face, his obsidian eyes glittered. He was elated, drunk with victory. Rubin remembered the first time he had seen his lord in his oxblood armour, standing in the Red Palace at the top of the Pomegranate Stair. Then he had briefly thought him dipped in gore, and now that seemed prescient, a forecast of today’s slaughter.

  Marcellus drew off dripping gauntlets and dropped them. With unsuppressed glee, he thumped Rubin on the back. ‘That is the power I can wield, boy!’

  Rubin nodded, struggling to smile. He could not share Marcellus’ joy at the carnage. He busied himself retrieving his lord’s swords and wiping them, his mind still in turmoil.

  But Marcellus grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in close. ‘Tomorrow we will discover if you can do the same!’ he hissed.

  Rubin felt the unwholesome heat of him, smelled the night wine heavy on his breath and the stench of blood and guts rolling off his armour. It was all he could do not to back away in disgust.

  He spent a restless, enervating night, his fleeting dreams stalked by horrors. He dreamed of Marcellus as a giant in golden armour trampling across the City. He raised his shining arms and legs high and placed his feet heavily like some huge mechanical monster. Around him men, women and children disappeared in a whirlwind of carnage, though not a drop of blood stained the monster’s golden body.

  When he awoke Rubin felt more weary than when he had lain down a few brief hours before. His body ached and the wounds he’d thought of yesterday as minor started their clamour. He sat up, groaning, and shook his head to free himself of the cling of nightmare. On the cold ground around him dog-tired soldiers slept and snored. Above them the waxen moon appeared then vanished behind scudding clouds.

  He had killed many men, too many to count. Archange’s slight, I am told you are not a warrior, no longer held true. Yet, for all the lives that had been ended by his blade, still Rubin was repelled by his lord’s feat of slaughter and by his drunken, boastful glee. Dread washed through him at the thought that he might share Marcellus’ power to destroy. What is he? he wondered. And what am I? Tentatively he felt for the power he knew lay curled within him, waiting, but could detect nothing but an empty stomach and full bladder and the pains of any mortal man after a savage battle. The einai, as Marcellus had called it, had previously arisen in him unsummoned. He had been its victim, its unwilling puppet. Under the random moonlight he vowed to himself that if the power emerged again he would wrest it to his own will.

  That morning the battle started in much the same way as the day before, except, Rubin thought, the enemy fighters looked a little less eager. They had lost, Vares’ captains calculated, as many as two thousand warriors. A triumph for the City, but not nearly enough to turn the tide. Marcellus’ rout of the enemy was barely mentioned, except when soldiers predicted they would walk in dread of him in future. On the contrary, Rubin feared, his lord would be the prime target now.

  He lined up beside the same dour veteran who had dragged him away the previous day. Loomis, he learned, had once been a Warhound of the Thousand, and word of the century made Rubin think of Valla and her unconquerable faith in Marcellus and in the City. He smiled fondly. For all the enemy’s superior numbers, their new weaponry, and the dread plague, Valla would have no doubt the City would prevail. The thought encouraged him. He hoped she was still safe in the White Palace and not in the front line somewhere.

  As the drums rolled and the enemy horde charged Rubin put aside all his misgivings about Marcellus and resolved to protect his lord to his last breath. What else, otherwise, was he there for?

  A City soldier fell in front of him, leaving a gap in the line. Two swordsmen came storming through. Rubin swerved to his right and ducked a swinging blade, then speared the first man. Then he darted left and parried a mighty blow from the second warrior which forced him to one knee. He drove his knife blade into the man’s groin. As the man sagged, blood spouting, he leaped up and finished him with a throat cut. He looked around for Marcellus, then stepped over a body to cover his lord’s back again.

  Next to him Loomis was locked in combat with a burly warrior who was naked bar a leather kilt. He was covered with tattoos, but they did nothing to protect him. Loomis blocked a sword-thrust then ran the man through with a long dagger. As he thrust and slashed, parried and blocked, Rubin wondered at these enemy soldiers who fought so fiercely despite being mostly unarmoured. Did they have some faith that made them fearless, or was it just a pure hatred of the City?

  ‘Rubin!’ Loomis shouted. Rubin barely saw the blur of motion to his left but he swerved and felt the heavy swish of a cudgel pass close by his ear. He spun and skewered the wielder before the man could swing again. They’re all so slow, Rubin thought. Is this how Marcellus feels in a battle, that all his enemies are sluggish and weak? He could sense no power within him yet he felt invulnerable, as if his opponents were all in their first fight, green and unskilled. As the long morning passed he killed every man who came against him, his bloo
d thrilling in his veins.

  But, for all his efforts and Marcellus’ leadership, the City’s defenders were losing ground pace by pace. Even Marcellus had been forced to take up his shield and defend himself from the frenzied attacks of swarms of warriors whose only focus was on killing him.

  It was around midday when, it seemed, he’d had enough. He ordered the retreat. His troops swiftly backed away, certain of what was to come, and this time Rubin went with them. Marcellus flung his shield at an enemy soldier, bellowing his defiance, and fought on with two swords, the blades whirling so fast they seemed to create an impenetrable barrier around him. When the pain spiked in the base of his skull Rubin watched with dread and fascination.

  The tattooed fighters did not run, not this time. They screamed and they writhed, their bodies torn and tormented, but only a handful of them turned tail. And one determined warrior, blood gouting from eyes and ears, in the final agonized moment of his life, lunged forward and plunged his blade deep into Marcellus’ side.

  Rubin yelled, ‘My lord!’ and ran to him, reckless of the agony in his head.

  Marcellus staggered. He seemed to be held upright only by his armour. His power faded and was gone. Soldiers of both sides raced forward, desperate to be the first to reach him. Rubin outstripped them all and threw himself in front of his lord, his outflung shield deflecting an enemy sword slashing towards Marcellus’ neck. He plunged his knife into the attacker’s eye, then held off the renewed attack by the enemy as Marcellus sank slowly to his knees. City men lifted their wounded leader and carried him away. His duty to protect his lord for the moment done, Rubin left the fight to others and followed.

  Marcellus was hurried to the casualty station, dark blood pumping from his side. His face was deathly pale, as if all his lifeblood were swiftly draining from the deep gash, but his eyes were open, searching the sky. He was laid on a pallet bed and Rubin helped pull off the gore-drenched armour. A surgeon quickly packed clean cloths into the injury in a bid to staunch the blood, which was frothy with air. Rubin knew this was a bad omen. He watched the flow, willing it to stop, but the cloths turned instantly red, as did those that replaced them. He wished he knew more about Marcellus’ capacity to heal himself. Any ordinary soldier would be dead within the hour from a wound this deep, this vital, but Rubin himself had suffered worse and survived in the end.

  And so, as the battle raged on mere paces away, Rubin sat by his lord’s side and willed him to live.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  AS TWILIGHT FELL on the grasslands beyond the Great North Gate, the gentle light softening the carnage beside the Cairn of Ashes, a lone horse plodded out of the north. The City walls within her sight, the rider stared in dismay at the bodies on the blood-soaked ground in front of her and at the vast army massed at the broken gate in the distance.

  Emly slid from the saddle and knelt beside the nearest corpse. The soldier had been slashed across the face, his features impossible to discern. She moved to the next, who had no injury she could see. She felt his bloody hand. It was cold. She walked among the dead, seeing many she recognized, some mutilated, some with no clear cause of death for all were clotted with dry blood. But she knew none of their names and it was only when she found Stern’s torn body that she wept. She had thought him long dead at the Vorago and it seemed pitiful to find him here so near the City, defeated so close to home.

  Then, through her tears, Emly saw a sprawled figure with an eyepatch. Hurrying over she found it was Casmir. He had a fearful gash in his chest and his skin was cold to the touch, but he was not yet dead, for he opened his one eye when she murmured his name. She jumped up, ran to the horse and grabbed her water skin. But Casmir would not drink, turning his head away.

  ‘Emly,’ he whispered. She bent close and his breath was light as down on her face. ‘You were always witness to my undoing,’ he said, his voice serene.

  She did not ask him why he was there, among the heroes of the City.

  ‘Can I do anything, Casmir?’ she asked but he moved his head a little to say no. She knew he was beyond help.

  ‘Can I take word to anyone, a wife, a son?’ she asked but he made no reply and she realized he was dead.

  Then she noticed the jacket he was wearing. It was Evan’s, and she had believed it lost on the Vorago battlefield. With difficulty she rolled his body over and stripped it off. She ripped open its silken lining, now stained with blood and mud. Gleaming in the fading light was the Gulon Veil. Her thoughts in turmoil, Emly took it out carefully then held it to her breast. She looked at Casmir. She unfolded the veil and laid it lightly over him. The familiar lacework beasts – her childhood friends – frolicking around it seemed a mockery in this place of slaughter. Emly placed her hands on Casmir’s chest and willed his heart to start beating again. She waited, speaking under her breath, petitioning the gods of ice and fire to make him live.

  But the assassin remained dead and she sat back, defeated. She had been told the veil had virtue to heal, to make the dead live, but she did not know how. Overcome by sorrow, she bowed her head and her tears fell on Casmir’s face as she asked the gods to admit him to the Gardens of Stone, though she knew she did not have the right for she was not a soldier.

  Eventually she stood and, clutching the veil to her breast, walked to the cairn. It was built of flat stones and was taller than a man, but on a plaque facing west, the direction of last things, words were inscribed. Em did not know what they said, but it seemed important and she vowed to return one day and read the words if she was able. She looked south, to where the City and its battling armies were vanishing into darkness. She knew she had to get away from there and she wondered how far it was along the wall to the next gate and if that was also besieged.

  Why was the assassin wearing Evan’s jacket? She assumed he had picked it up on the battlefield, scavenging after the fighting was done. Or perhaps Casmir had joined the battle and taken the jacket afterwards. Either way he could have had no idea what treasure he was bringing back to the City.

  Surveying the dead warriors, she tried to fix them in her mind’s eye, for if she did not remember them, who would? She draped Evan’s jacket round her shoulders, stowed the veil in her cloth bag, then clambered back on Patience and turned his head west, following the wall.

  It had taken her no more than twelve days to return from the Vorago, Patience eating up the leagues with his remorseless stride. She had seen nobody but the dead. As darkness fell each night she had chosen her place to sleep with care, denying herself a fire for she feared it would bring scavengers or those she dreaded most, Fkeni tribesmen. She could not know that the Fkeni had been annihilated by the enemy army as it made its way south, hunting or trampling over any living thing in its wide, scouring path – animals, birds, plant life and the last few Fkeni, who had fought bravely against overwhelming numbers but whose people were now wiped for ever from the earth.

  It was just a day into her journey when Em had found the remains of City soldiers by the trail. They had been torn and gnawed by animals, but she had recognized Quora’s body from the beads in her hair and by the Fkeni knife she carried in place of the one she had given Emly. Em had wondered what happened after the battle, and how these three had made it that far and what had stopped them. She had taken their knives, hiding them in her pack as surety for she feared losing the pigsticker above all things, except for the stallion.

  After that she had ridden Patience hard, traversing the high mountain pass in a single weary day. She had come across more corpses, including many enemy warriors with their strange tattoos. Most of the bodies had been gnawed and dismembered, but as the days passed more of the corpses she saw were intact and she knew she must be closing on the army, and the City.

  When she arrived at the Narrows she had feared herself defeated for she could not imagine crossing the wide water alone. She remembered the day, years ago it seemed, when she had crossed it in the other direction, riding atop the warhorse while Evan swam beside them. She h
ad wept that night, wondering if she would ever get home and what she would find when she got there.

  The crossing had been terrifying and she feared for them both as Patience was swept far out of their way by the strength of the water. But the big beast had an indomitable spirit and eventually he gained the far shore, exhausted and shaken by his struggle. That was three days ago and she had spent the long days and nights since resting the horse and idling on the bank of the water watching the birds and animals creeping back now the vast army had passed.

  Once they were in sight of the City, Emly had wondered again if she’d been right to return and abandon Evan to the mercies of the strange woman Selene. But then she had found the veil, and finding it convinced her she was doing the right thing. She now believed Evan had been wrong to steal it, for ill luck had plagued the City since its departure. She could only return the Gulon Veil to the empress and throw herself on Archange’s mercy.

  As she slept that night, tucked in a grassy dell, her dreams haunted by corpses, a man walked into her camp. Patience gave a snort of recognition and the man patted his neck and whispered words of calm. He looked down at the sleeping girl and marvelled at her persistence. And he wondered if the plague would take her once she found her way into the City. He thought it probably would, for he was sure the blood of the Serafim ran strongly in her. Would she survive it? Perhaps. Would she go on if she knew about it? Probably.

  When Emly awoke it was still dark. The chill air made her shiver as she quickly saddled Patience, and as the first fingers of dawn touched the land they set off along the wall again heading, though she did not know it, towards the sea. She wondered that this stretch of the wall was so quiet, deserted except for wild beasts and birds, while the gate behind her was under siege. Em had no idea of the geography of the City. The only map she had ever seen was in the throne room of the White Palace and she did not recognize it for what it was for she could not read. Despite a life spent within the City she did not understand the scale of it, the hundreds of leagues of mighty walls stretching from the heaving streets of the south to the empty lands of the north, from the Seagate all the way to the Wayfarers Gate. She guessed only that if she followed the wall she would eventually find another gate to enter by and she hoped the next would not have an enemy army camped outside.