by Matthew Ward
Calenne wondered what Akadra referred to. She decided that she didn’t care. “I’m not going back to Branghall.”
“I must insist.” There was a hardness beneath the words, but no threat. “All I ask is that you offer witness to the small service I provided. A few kind words, if you can stir yourself to them, and no more. After that, you may go wherever you wish.”
Suspicion crowded in. He couldn’t mean that, could he? “Truly?”
“You have my word.”
He did mean it. That was almost as concerning as the alternative. Calenne’s world was built on a handful of ironclad certainties. That Trelans did not leave Branghall was chief among them. And yet here was Viktor Akadra, the Council’s champion, offering to shatter that certainty like it was nothing. He could be lying, but what did that lie get him that he could not take by force?
And she did owe Josiri a farewell. Unbearable though he was, he was still her brother. Although the question remained whether he’d be as sanguine to see her leave as the Black Knight seemingly was. She shook the complication aside. It wasn’t Josiri’s choice, but hers.
As for Viktor Akadra? More than ever, it seemed the man was not the monster. All those nightmares. A girl’s imagining. No more real than the hollow voice that whispered in her thoughts while she slept, or the boggart that dwelled beneath her bed.
“I’d sooner have some warm water, soap and the privacy in which to wash,” she said. “I’m filthy, and I stink. Give me that, and you’ll have your kind words.”
“I confess that I hadn’t noticed,” he rumbled. “But I will see what can be done.”
“Where is Calenne?”
Josiri broached the question with more force than he’d intended, but it had been a long night, full of worry and suspicion. Even the orange-gold of the early sun and the summerhouse’s warmth couldn’t dispel the peculiar chill born of sleeplessness.
The pencil ceased its dance across the paper. Anastacia glanced up from the desk, her black eyes empty of interest. “How should I know? Is this why you’ve been wandering the grounds?”
Josiri’s temper quickened. It wasn’t what she said, but the way she’d spoken. Calenne always invited an edge to Anastacia’s voice. Irritation tinged with disappointment. But not this time. Something had changed. And he’d a sinking feeling he knew what.
“She wasn’t at Ascension.”
“I know. I was there, remember? Her mistake. The cooks outdid themselves, and the wine . . .”
“Her bed’s not been slept in. She’s not in Grandfather’s tower, and none of the servants have seen her since yesterday.”
He paused, alert for a guilty twitch. He saw only polite interest. Her face could have been a mask, watchful and unblinking. Almost innocent, or as close as she ever came to such. More and more, this felt like a game. Was that why he was spinning it out? To give her a chance to prove his suspicions wrong?
Anastacia returned to her sketch. “I’ve not seen her this morning either.”
“But you met with her yesterday. In the grounds.” Josiri strove to match her calm, collected manner. “A servant saw you.”
The pencil scritched to a halt, the delicate arc of a tower’s onion dome incomplete on the page. Anastacia tapped the point twice on the paper and set it aside. “Ah.”
He found no satisfaction in the confession that was no confession. “You opened the hallowgate.”
A hesitation. “Yes.” She still didn’t look up from the desk.
“How did she learn of it? What did she threaten?” He shouldn’t have underestimated her. For all her faults, Calenne was as bright as the pinnacle star. It wouldn’t have taken much sloppiness on his part for her to work things out. “A promise to throw herself from the tower, I suppose.”
For a heartbeat, Josiri mistook the low, throaty ripple for a sob – an utterance as alien to Anastacia as tears. Then he recognised it as a chuckle.
“Threaten me? All these years, and you think a threat could move me? It was my idea.”
“Your . . . ?” He took a deep breath to smother a flash of anger. It didn’t work. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“What she wanted. What you needed.”
“What I needed?”
At last, her gaze rose from the desk. Dark eyes bore into his. “Don’t play the fool, Josiri. It doesn’t suit you. Or are you now to pretend that Calenne’s broken wedding wouldn’t have changed your plans?”
Josiri flinched. “You’ve sent her straight into harm’s way. The north-wealders are on edge. The Hadari are coming. This was no time for indulging my sister’s selfish fancies!”
Anastacia’s eyes pulsed. “Only your own, is that it?”
“You want to explain that?”
She rose, wreathed in golden haze as temper slackened control over her form. A small, distant part of Josiri’s brain shrank back – urged the rest of him to apologise. But he held his ground and willed a trembling knee to stillness.
“Calenne’s wishes have never mattered to you,” said Anastacia, “not unless they mesh with yours. She wanted her freedom. I saw no reason not to grant it.”
“She could die.”
“So could you! At any moment. So could any of us. In the end, the Raven takes us all.”
A sombre tone swelled beneath the final phrase. Taking it for a crack in resolve, Josiri pressed on. “And if the northwealders find her roaming free? Do you know what it will mean if Yanda and Makrov realise they’ve been played for fools?”
“Then you’d better get your revolution underway, hadn’t you? I’ve set the shutters in place, calling for a meeting. Revekah and Crovan should be here for noon. I suggest you have something to tell them.”
Josiri couldn’t decide what was worse – the betrayal, or the sensation of losing control over his own life. He supposed it to be his own fault for assuming equality that plainly did not exist. For all Anastacia’s professed adoration, for all the intimacy they’d shared, no bridge could span the chasm between them.
“I suppose you’re pleased with yourself?” he said bitterly.
Her shoulders slumped to match softening eyes. “Oh, Josiri. What I am is tired of waiting for you to leave. I just want it over.”
Her sudden sorrow almost quenched Josiri’s anger. But not quite. How could he be certain this wasn’t another of her games? His heart might have convinced him, were it not already heavy from her betrayal. And beneath it all, there was a spark of sullen resentment that Anastacia might be right. About Calenne. About him.
“Then I’ll leave you to your sketches,” he bit out, deliberately misreading her words. “I’ll meet you by the oak at noon. I think it’s better our paths don’t cross before then, don’t you?”
She stared unblinkingly, her expression unreadable. “Yes, your grace.”
He nodded, recognising that the formality of her tone widened the chasm yet further.
Then he saw smoke billowing against the eastern horizon and realised he wouldn’t be making the noon meeting after all – at least, not the one Anastacia intended.
Sixteen
Cracked by cold winters and patched only by the thriftiest of repairs, the north bastion shuddered with the rumbling groan of a dying mountain. Dust and rubble flooded the muddy ditch. The boneless, broken soldiers who’d once manned its ramparts lay stark against white stone-spoil.
“Get out of there, you fools!” Lieutenant Hedragg bellowed. He knew the words would never carry from the central keep to the neighbouring bastion. “It’s coming down!”
Those who escaped the bastion’s ruin did so only through the sacrifice of two kraikons. Uncaring of the danger, the constructs braced palms against the outer wall and steel-shod feet against the courtyard’s flagstones.
Men and women took crumbling stairs three or four at a time, or leapt from the walls to uncertain fates. Then, with a dying groan of mangled rock, the upper storeys plunged. The deluge swept the last of the garrison aside and buried the selfless kraikons beneath r
ubble. With a yawning, groaning roar, a portion of the eastern wall gave way alongside, leaving a ragged breach as invitation to the besiegers.
Hedragg found no comfort at all in the lack of screams. No cry could have triumphed over the drumbeats. They reverberated in Hedragg’s gut, jarring his bones and setting his teeth on edge. He longed for their ceasing. At the same time hoped they never did, for that meant the assault was coming.
“We can’t hold them!” Even shouting, Hedragg barely heard his own words over the din.
Captain Karmonov rounded on him, teeth bared and eyes blazing. “We do not yield! Death and honour!”
Hedragg stared at her, mindful to conceal his horror from the common soldiers. Half a company lost in a single salvo, and the courtyard open to direct assault. For all that its old stones dominated the mountainside – for all that its ballistae commanded the east–west road that ran beneath its walls – Voldmarr Watch could not be held. Not with twice its three hundred blades. But Karmonov was a soldier of the old school, a veteran of victories won along the Ravonn. Death and honour. And likely both at once.
“Herald!” bellowed Karmonov.
A pasty-faced girl no more than fourteen years old threw a hasty salute. “Captain?”
“Find Sergeant Gellern. Tell him he’s to hold the breach.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The girl bobbed a bow and hurried away across the keep’s rampart. Hedragg wondered what had brought her to Voldmarr in the first place. Likely an empty belly or a thief’s brand. Half his soldiers were running from hunger or the noose.
Iridescent white flame arced high, launched from siege engines concealed where the pine-forested slopes fell away towards the border. The missiles slammed into the southern bastion. Ancient stones cracked and fell away. Ballistae crashed from their mountings. One of Voldmarr’s precious remaining kraikons slid sideways as the outer walkway collapsed. It struck the courtyard’s flagstones with enough force to send cracks racing like jagged spider webs.
Through it all, ballistae fired blind into the distant trees. Again the fire came, this time plunging past the ruined north bastion and the crumbling curtain wall. Gellern’s hastily assembled defensive line broke apart even as it reached the gaping breach in the east wall. Wounded thrashed madly as white fire burned flesh black. Shields locked together once more, the line of flesh and steel desperate to prevail where stone had not.
To Hedragg’s eyes it looked so thin. So terribly, terribly thin.
The herald returned as the bombardment faltered. She resumed her station at Karmonov’s side without a word. Her eyes never left the forest.
Thick black smoke spiralled into the sky above the north bastion as fire took hold. The first gold glinted at the tree line’s edge. The drums stopped.
“They’re coming,” Hedragg muttered.
“This is it!” Karmonov bellowed. “Make Lumestra proud! We fight to the end!”
“To the end!” The shout crashed back across the ramparts.
Pride emerged triumphant from Hedragg’s swirling emotions. In a way, Karmonov was right. There was glory to be won and duty to be upheld. But still he couldn’t shake the feeling that lives spent today were lives wasted.
The first Hadari marched up out of the trees. Formations took shape on the slopes. Silken robes and golden scales of the Emperor’s Immortals advanced in steady lockstep, their shields braced against crossbow fire. The finest warriors in the Empire, come to Voldmarr Watch. Overkill in the highest degree, to Hedragg’s judgement. It marked the enemy commander as impatient, or perhaps inclined to offer compliment to the doomed garrison by sending his best onto the walls. Clansmen of the Imperial heartlands pressed in behind, their garb drab and muted by comparison as they scrambled up the slope. Arrows fell like rain.
And the banners. So many banners, each bearing a warchief’s heraldry. Wolf masks, snake fangs and crow brands.
Two-score banners. Two-score warchiefs. And more to come, yet hidden beneath the trees. Kai Saran had brought thousands of blades.
The drumbeats crashed back, louder than before.
A kraikon broke ranks at the northern end of Gellern’s line and surged downhill. Huge legs pounding against stone, it ploughed into the Immortals. Shields buckled beneath the impact. Bodies were flung away by the killing weight of living bronze. Golden magic leapt along the blade of a longsword taller than a man. It crackled as its wielder reaped shadowthorns. A massive, brazen hand plucked a screaming Immortal aloft and wielded him as a bloody flail.
A pride of simarka crossed the rubble and tensed for the pounce. Metal clanged on metal as they struck shields, bowling Immortals away down the slope. Others darted into the newly opened gaps, raking with tooth and claw.
The Hadari formation shuddered, faltered. Cheers broke out along the walls. Fists punched the air in savage glee.
“Too soon,” Hedragg muttered. “Should’ve held them for the charge.”
Gellern had panicked, but who could blame him for that?
Horns blared. Drums boomed. The Immortals bellowed defiance and came on with quickened pace and new determination. Hammer cracked against bronze. Golden light flared. Simarka fell silent as the light left them, reverting to husks of mangled alloy. The kraikon’s knee shattered, and the giant fell beneath a swarm of golden scales.
Hedragg tried to estimate the shadowthorn dead. At least a hundred, and as many more wounded.
Nowhere near enough.
The first Immortals’ shields crested the ravaged east wall. Hedragg drew closer to his captain. “There’s still time.”
“No.” For once, Karmonov’s tone was bereft of anger. “It’s too late. We’ll feel their spears in our backs long before we reach safety. But you go. Ride to Governor Yanda. Tell her that Voldmarr Watch holds, but that it will not hold long.”
And just like that, Hedragg was free of the slaughter. Free of Karmonov’s hollow glory. But now the opportunity had arrived, he found he’d no stomach for it. His place was alongside his comrades – in life or death.
He took a deep breath and turned to the herald. “You heard the captain’s words?”
The girl’s gaze flickered from Hedragg to Karmonov and back again. “I did, sir.”
“Then take my steed and see that they’re delivered.” Hedragg turned to Karmonov. “With your permission, I’ll join the 2nd in the breach. One of us should be there.”
“Granted. Death and honour, lieutenant.”
He hesitated, but in the end what else was there? “Death and honour.”
Seventeen
The oppressive catacomb air closed about Malachi like a fist. The serpents of sweet incense curling from the braziers lent shortness to every breath, and a rasp to every word. An interment tradition – an imitation of the mists of Otherworld. And like most traditions, Malachi could have managed quite handily without it.
“And so, we commit Kasamor Kiradin to silence, in preparation for Third Dawn, and when Lumestra leads us all once more into the light.”
The priest’s booming sincerity filled every crack and cranny. Confident, consoling.
“Lumestra wake us from darkness,” Malachi joined the congregation in the chant. “And lead us into the light.”
Organ music bloomed from pipes hidden by the outsize statues. They numbered hundreds, lining the aisles, silent guardians atop entombed flesh. And this was but the Kiradin reach of the catacomb. One vault among dozens.
The priest stomped the heel of his staff on tile. Once. Twice. One strike of the staff for each making of the world.
“Make the hallowed farewell,” he said. “But do not mourn. For we will all be born again with the coming of the Third Dawn and walk once again with those we have lost.”
The choir of veiled serenes raised their voices in hymn. The front ranks of the congregation broke from ordered rows and approached the oaken casket for the hallowed farewell. Despite the priest’s words, this was a moment only for family and friends. Malachi half expected the prie
st’s hand on his own shoulder; the slow, solemn shake of the head. In the event, he took his place behind Rosa and began the long shuffle to the waiting casket without complication.
Rosa offered no acknowledgement. Indeed, she’d spoken fewer than a dozen words since their arrival. Her manner remained stiff and cold, and she seemed a stranger in many ways. Not least because Malachi couldn’t recall when last he’d seen her exchange a uniform for a formal gown.
“Kasamor would have hated this,” he murmured. “He’d have wanted a party, not a wake.”
“He left detailed instructions the very first time we went into battle,” she replied. “No incense, no dirge and no priests. Serenes? Serenes he didn’t mind, though I shudder to think why. I told Ebigail. She ignored me.”
Of course she had. Malachi cast his gaze to where the elder Lady Kiradin now parted her veil and stooped to kiss the stylised features of her son’s golden death mask. Her poise, her whole manner, was of a matron striving against grief. Striving, but not overwhelmed. Her cheeks were dry of tears, and her expression as impassive. Ebigail Kiradin would love her son more in death than she ever had in life, for Tressia was built on the dead. On their deeds, and on their tombs.
Ebigail stood aside. Sevaka took her place, eyes downcast and rimmed red by clandestine tears. Shameful, perhaps, but Malachi was glad to see some genuine sorrow. The traditional kiss bestowed, Sevaka withdrew. An older man – a distant uncle – stepped forward.
“Hold.”
Ebigail’s pronouncement brought the line to a halt. Malachi frowned. The hallowed farewell was traditionally performed in silence, and without interruption.
“Roslava.” Ebigail extended a hand, scattering kith and kin. “You should be here. Come, child. Take your place.”
Malachi noted the same kindness was not extended to him, despite the greater tally of years that had bound him to Kasamor. Rosa stiffened, but made no move.