The caverns had become cruel, petty and mean-spirited, with violence flaring for any and no reason. Lethargy and listless apathy had overcome many. Those who looked fed were accused of eating the flesh of the dead, and in some cases the accusations had proved correct. People were murdered for a morsel of food, or assaulted because they had a good place to stand at a ventilation shaft. The number of clansfolk left alive was falling by the day, and once starvation took hold, the collapse would be swift. Killop hoped to get the squad out before that happened. He had mentioned his ideas to Keira, about getting them all out through a tunnel to freedom, but she had said nothing, pretending she hadn’t heard him.
‘Shall we say a prayer to begin the new day?’ said Lyla.
Most of the squad groaned.
‘What makes ye think,’ Keira said, ‘that you’ll get a different answer today, hen?’
‘Persistence is a virtue,’ said Lyla, quoting a religious homily.
‘Aye, and yer a persistent bugger right enough,’ Keira said, ‘but I’m never going to say aye.’
‘Ach, come on mage,’ said Koreen, ‘let her say her wee prayer.’
‘It’s pointless shite, but.’
‘For once I agree,’ said Bridget.
‘I’d like to hear it,’ said Kyleen.
Keira tutted.
‘Go on,’ Kylon said. ‘Say your words, Lyla. Speak them from your heart.’
The Lach archer smiled and nodded. She closed her eyes. The squad grew still, as the first rays of the sun spilled over the eastern mountains, lighting up the peaks around them.
O Pyre, True Fire God, we beseech you,
Hear our supplication,
We, the true servants of the true fire god,
On this new morning,
We ask you humbly,
Still your temper,
Strike our enemies,
Stay your hand,
And let us see the sun set.
Lyla fell silent.
‘So basically,’ Keira said into the quiet, ‘every day ye ask Pyre not to fucking kill us?’
‘The fire god’s a hard bastard,’ muttered Domnan.
‘I know ye all take the piss,’ Lyla snapped at them, ‘but I believe, and I’m sure that others in the squad do as well, only they’re too feart to say so in front of ye.’
‘I believe,’ Kyleen said, ‘and I’m not afraid to say it.’
‘I kind of believe,’ Koreen said, shrugging.
‘I don’t,’ said Kelly. ‘Load of bollocks.’
‘You can’t say that!’ gasped Conal. ‘Not while we’re sitting in his own temple.’
‘What?’ Kelly laughed. ‘You actually believe the god lives in that dead old mountain?’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I do.’
‘And you seriously think,’ she went on, ‘that he’d be more upset by my doubts, than by those bastards camped out there?’ She pointed towards the valley, where the Rahain army sat behind their wooden wall.
They all looked.
Killop jumped to his feet. ‘Fuck, they’re moving!’
In the distance, further than a longbow could reach, the Rahain camp was bustling with activity. Behind their wall, the Rahain throwing machines were trundling forward. They had been inactive for several days, after having pulverised everything within range. The entire landscape had been ripped up by the continual bombardment, and craters were filled with jagged and broken stockade timbers. Only the closest palisade wall remained, constructed twenty paces in front of the temple. It was high, and strong, with a walkway along its length. For the entire siege arrows and bows had been stockpiled, awaiting the attack, but the ravages of a claustrophobic hunger had reduced the watch on the wall to a company of tired and starving warriors.
Killop looked down at the palisade below them.
‘Hai!’ he shouted. ‘Get your squads ready, the lizards are on the move!’
Down below, warriors looked up at Killop in confusion. One ran to the wall, and climbed up onto the walkway. He shielded his eyes from the sun, and gazed out.
‘He’s right,’ he called to the others. ‘They’re coming!’
As the warriors below started to get ready, Killop saw that Keira was using the lizardeye to view the Rahain.
He tapped her on the shoulder. She rolled her eyes and passed it to him.
Through it, he watched the Rahain soldiers forming up in ranks behind their wall. Their machines were still advancing between the columns. The wall itself began to move, as dozens of shields were pulled up out of the ground where they had been embedded.
The viewing tube was yanked out of his hand.
He glared as his sister.
‘Their shields are up!’ Keira shouted, as she peered through the lizardeye. She frowned. ‘What are they waiting for?’
By their own wall, warriors were standing on the walkway, stringing longbows, and unwrapping sheaves of arrows. Even without the lizardeye, Killop could see that the Rahain army still hadn’t moved forward. Their great machines had also come to a halt.
‘They’re still too feart to attack us,’ Keira muttered.
Killop doubted that, but could think of no reason why the Rahain hadn’t begun their advance.
Lacey snatched the lizardeye from Keira’s hand and peered through it, aiming up at the sky.
‘What the fuck are ye doing…?’ said Keira. ‘Oh.’ She squinted up, trying not to look into the sun. ‘Build up the fire!’ she cried. ‘Get all the wood gathered here, anything that’ll burn.’
The younger members of the squad ran off to obey her.
Killop put his hand up to shield his eyes and gazed at the sky. Nothing. Just glowering clouds tinged with the bright rays of the morning sun.
‘There they are,’ Lacey said, almost whispering. ‘I see them, coming over the northern spur, flying low.’
‘Give me that,’ Keira cried, grabbing the lizardeye. ‘Shit, she’s right, I see them too. Flying low? They’re practically scraping their arses off the mountainside. No, wait a minute, the bastards are carrying the big wooden cylinders we saw. What the fuck? They planning on landing them in here?’
Killop spotted them at last with his unaided eyes. Two score of the flying reptiles were soaring over the northern spur, keeping close to the ground. They were formed in groups of four, with each set carrying one of the long wooden vessels.
As they got nearer, the warriors on the wall saw them as well, and started pointing their longbows up at them.
The flying reptiles moved into a column formation so they could approach one at a time as they made their descent toward the temple. As the first set came in, Killop stared at the vessel the four flying beasts were carrying. It was slung under the reptiles with cables, just as those at the Brig Pass had been, but something seemed different at the front of the cylinder.
Killop took the lizardeye, and looked through the lens.
Attached to the nose of the Rahain vessel was a large iron ram, ending in a spike.
‘They’re not going to land them,’ he said. ‘They’re going to use them to batter down the wall.’
As the squad watched from the colonnaded balcony, the first vessel was carried in. Several arrows flew, and some struck the flying reptiles to no effect, while others deflected off the side of the wooden tube. As the beasts approached Keira’s throwing range, she moved her left hand up in readiness.
‘Come on,’ she whispered.
The cables attached to the vessel whipped free, and the beasts spun upwards and away, while the armoured cylinder hurtled on, straight at the palisade wall.
Warriors yelled, and leapt from the wall as the vessel crashed into it at about head height, the ram ripping a gaping hole through its splintered timbers. The vessel kept going, passing through the gap in the wall it had made, and smashing into a cluster of warriors as it hit the ground. It slid right over them and ground to a halt in the soft earth, just paces from the temple front.
All around, stunned warriors stared a
t the vessel, each frozen where they stood. The wooden sides of the cylinder sprang open and fell to the ground, revealing the Rahain soldiers crammed within. Each had a crossbow levelled, and with the first line down on one knee, and the third line on a step behind, there were three rows of bows on either side of the vessel.
They loosed, as one.
Every warrior between the wall and the temple that was within forty feet of the vessel was scythed down, bolts strafing them.
Killop stared in disbelief.
A thundering crash sounded to his left, and he turned to see another Rahain vessel obliterate a section of wall near the northern side of the valley. As it landed, its sides swung open, and another hailstorm of crossbow bolts fired out, felling warriors in their dozens.
Down the valley, the main army now started to move, in a steady jog up the gentle incline, avoiding the worst of the craters and piles of broken debris.
To his right, he felt a great heat, and he ducked just as Keira sent a ball of fire towards the first vessel that had smashed through. Flames engulfed it and within seconds it was ablaze, while soldiers on fire ran from either side in panic.
Keira turned her attention to the next formation of flying reptiles that were making their approach. She reached back her left hand, until it was almost touching the ground behind her, and then hurled her arm up and over her shoulder, grunting with the effort. A huge rolling mass of flame shot through the air, and flew further than Killop had ever seen Keira manage before. It collided with the incoming reptiles, incinerating the upper bodies of the leading pair, and the weight of the vessel and the two enormous corpses sent the formation crashing to the ground. The vessel was smashed apart on impact, and steel, wood, and the bodies of soldiers sprayed through the air.
Keira went down to one knee, gasping. Lacey and Kyleen crouched by her side, keeping her from falling.
Killop looked back at the sky. At least another half dozen flying formations had yet to make their descent. Down by the palisade, pierced in two places, the Rahain from the second vessel had formed up in their ranks and were securing the northern entrance to the temple.
Before he could think, the next flying vessel was released, and it ripped through the wall to his right, ploughing through the ground before the temple doors.
‘Kallie!’ he cried. ‘Lead us out of here.’
Kallie and her archers were shooting their longbows down into the advancing Rahain. She looked up at Killop, and shouted at her crew to pull back.
‘The only way out is through the caverns, Killop,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to go back down there,’ said Kalma. Next to her, Lyla nodded in agreement.
There was another great crash from the wall, where a fourth Rahain vessel had rammed the palisade.
‘There’s no choice!’ Killop yelled. ‘Go! Go!’
The squad bunched together as Killop and Kallie led the way. Keira was unable to walk, and was being half-carried, half-dragged along by Kyleen and Lacey.
They went through an archway in the cliffside, and entered a shrine, where priests had once gathered for dawn prayers over countless dead and forgotten generations. They ran past the rotten and broken pews to the rear of the shrine, where there were steps descending to the ground floor of the temple. Killop raced down the two flights of stairs, his eyes adjusting to the familiar dim light of the lamps.
He poked his head around the corner when he got to the bottom, and saw that the corridor was clear.
He put his hand up to silence the squad, who were waiting on the steps behind him. He signalled left, then third right, and they set off, padding along the quiet passageway. He heard the sound of fighting coming from outside, and as they reached the third door on the right, a large group of Rahain soldiers ran round the corner ahead of them, straight into their path.
The two sides paused for a split second, then reached for their weapons.
Killop grabbed the door handle and swung it open. ‘This way!’ he cried. As arrows and bolts started to fly, he began pulling his squad through the doorway. Several had already fallen, on both sides. The Rahain closed into ranks, and were firing their crossbows, while the squad were loosing their longbows and crossbows. Lyla was down, as was Bryony, both with bolts in their guts. Bryanna ran to her sister, and was struck in the side of her head, and sent spinning to the ground.
Killop grabbed Keira’s arm and pushed her through the doorway and into the hall beyond, where she sprawled on the stone floor. He next reached for Bridget, who was standing, staring open-mouthed at her sisters. Killop shoved her into the hall, as the others in the squad rushed past. Two remained in the corridor. Kylon was on one knee, shooting his crossbow, and Kallie was standing right behind him, loosing her longbow. Killop reached out with his big arms. He grabbed hold of each by the shoulder and pulled them into the hall, grunting with the effort, and falling onto the floor with them on top of him. Conal swung the door shut, and barred it from within.
Scrambling to his feet, Killop checked his squad. Domnan had taken a crossbow bolt to his upper left arm. Kelly had pulled it out, and was wrapping the Domm’s limb with a rag. Kyleen was limping. She had taken a glancing wound to her right knee, and was bleeding where the bolt had passed through the skin. He looked back at the door. The handle was wriggling, and fists were pounding on it from outside.
‘We need to keep going.’
They ran to the end of the hall, Keira helping her bodyguard, their usual roles reversed. The end of the hall led to a further long corridor, with rooms off either side.
‘Kallie?’ Killop said.
‘Right to the end!’ she cried. ‘Through the door at the other end!’
Killop cajoled and shoved his squad down the corridor. Lachryn stood frozen, staring back at the hall door.
‘Move! Now!’ Killop shouted. ‘Mourn later.’
They were halfway down the passageway by the time the Rahain burst into the chamber, sending the door flying off its hinges. They saw the squad and formed up into a shooting position. Killop looked ahead. Another thirty paces to go. Too far.
The click and thrum of crossbow bolts echoed down from the hall. Koreen screamed and fell, hit in the thigh.
As she toppled over, Killop shouldered open the nearest door on the left. ‘In here!’ he cried. The squad jumped and scrambled past him through the doorway. Killop and Conal each took one of Koreen’s arms, dragged her into the side room, and slammed the door shut. Killop swore as he glanced around. The room he had picked was large, and stacked with empty boxes and crates, but had no other exit. ‘Barricade the door,’ he called to the squad, kneeling by Koreen.
‘I’m all right, boss,’ she grimaced. ‘Just get that fucking thing out of my leg.’
Conal held her limb, and Killop pulled. Koreen let out an agonised scream, and passed out.
‘Bind her leg,’ Killop said to Conal, and the younger man nodded.
He got up and helped the squad pile crates next to the door. Keira staggered over to him.
‘Nice plan, wee brother.’
‘Don’t start, Keira.’
‘So how exactly are you intending on getting us out of here?’
‘You.’
‘What?’
‘As soon as yer able,’ he said, ‘we’re going to open that door a crack, and you’re going to torch every last thing that’s out there.’
‘Aye,’ she said, ‘that is a good plan. Only thing is, I’m knackered from hitting those flying snakes. That was the furthest I’ve ever thrown, by a long way. I don’t know when I’ll be ready.’
‘Fair enough,’ Killop said, ‘just tell me as soon as you are.’ He glanced at the crates piled up by the walls. ‘At least there’s plenty to burn.’
From beside the door, Kalma held her hand up. ‘Quiet.’
The squad fell silent.
Outside the door, they heard footsteps, and voices.
‘Bows,’ Killop whispered, ‘get ready.’
The surviving cross and
longbows lined up in a rough semi-circle, about ten paces from the door, and everyone else moved, or were dragged, behind them.
‘Come on then, ya bastards,’ Kelly muttered, her longbow ready, her right hand up by her ear.
The voices and footsteps lingered for a moment, then faded into the distance.
‘What are they doing?’ Kallie asked. ‘They must have seen us come in here.’
‘They’re away to fetch a mage,’ Keira said. ‘Rather than get their arses kicked in a head-on fight, they’ll just collapse the roof on top of us.’
‘Bows down,’ Killop said. ‘She’s right. Conal, Kalma, stay by the door. Everyone else, keep your bows handy, but get some rest.’
The squad lowered their weapons and sat on the floor, using the crates as backrests.
Domnan grunted, his face pale, his left arm rinsed in blood. Kelly walked over to him, a long strip of bandage in her hand.
‘We’re not making it out alive, are we?’ she said to no one in particular, as she wrapped it round the Domm’s arm. ‘I mean, we might make it out of this room, Pyre’s bollocks, we might even make it out of the temple, but we’ve lost this fucking war.’
‘No,’ said Kallie. ‘We get out, and run to the mountains. They’ll never catch us up there.’
‘And then,’ Keira said, ‘we’ll hit them again and again, until they give up and fuck off.’
‘So the best we can hope for,’ Kelly said, ‘is that a tiny band of survivors inherits a burnt and desolate land?’
‘I was just thinking about revenge, to be honest,’ Keira said, ‘not about what happens after.’
‘The mountains north of the Domm Pass, near the ocean cliffs,’ gasped Domnan. ‘Got no coal, no iron, but there are lots of tiny wee glens hidden away. Perfect place to lie low, and I should know.’
The Magelands Origins Page 45