by Matthew Ward
Apara did. Whatever reward the addled noblewoman sought, she’d wit enough to realise that it would be denied her if she embraced the Raven. She needed another to end her life. So why then did the burden of the coming murder not lessen? “I do.”
“Will you give me this gift?”
Apara hesitated, but what else could she say? “Yes.”
Lady Marest gave a shuddering breath. Her expression lit up with joy pure as the brightest sunlight. Her smile didn’t so much as flicker as Apara slid the stiletto between her ribs.
The kitchen door creaked. Marek stared blearily at the remnants of his evening meal. It had been a long day, and he wasn’t getting any younger. Didn’t mean he couldn’t exercise his frustrations on whichever of his subjects had disturbed a rare moment of quiet. One of the footmen, no doubt, sneaking in for leftovers while he thought his betters asleep.
His chair scraped against tile as he stood. “Quit your sneaking around. You want to feel the flat of my belt?”
The door fell closed, revealing not the expected footman, but Lady Sevaka. Or someone who bore a passing resemblance to Lady Sevaka. In all his years, Marek had never seen her eyes so hard or her skin so pale.
“Marek?” she said, her voice taut as a steel bar. “What has my mother done?”
Tzadas, 6th day of Radiance
We speak of the Dark as a living being. It is far more – but also far less. Even that splinter that survived Lumestra’s wrath has the power to reshape the world, but it can only act through our flesh and our souls.
Why else would it shape others to its service?
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Thirty-Six
The sun did not so much rise as slink from beneath the horizon, casting reluctant light on the distant imperial battle lines. The green silks and golden scale of the Immortals. The dark robes and leathers of shieldsmen and outriders. And to the west, no distance at all across the valley’s wheat-fields, the king’s blue tabards among golden crops. Outnumbered. Doomed. Drakos Crovan suspected Lumestra wanted no part of what the day would bring. Nor did he.
“Having second thoughts?” asked Silda Drenn.
“Second, and third, and fourth,” Crovan replied. “Trastorov once wrote that we delight in breaking oaths. The ultimate freedom.”
She spat. “There’s a reason they burned Trastorov. Bugger was a witch.”
“Three factions muster below. I’ve given my oath to each, at different times. I’ve broken one already. By dusk, I’ll have broken at least one more.”
“Then rejoice,” she replied. “For you’re about to be freer than ever.”
Crovan shook his head angrily. On the field below, Tressian shields formed up beneath towering kraikons. There’d be simarka too, prowling the wheat. “I haven’t felt free since I came home. I never wanted any of . . . this.”
“Then what do you want?”
A good question. He’d wanted to fight injustice. Once, he’d had a plan. Now . . . Now he wasn’t sure how he’d even got here, or where he was going. The path ahead was steep, but the path behind was shrouded in the mist of inconstant memory, and a dark voice tempting him to ruin. How could a life change so much without conscious choice?
“To live out my days with a clear conscience,” Crovan replied.
“Can’t be done. Better to embrace it.”
Maybe Drenn was right. A few paces more; the slope would lessen and the mists would part. He’d feel the sun on his face, instead of the chill in his bones.
Drawing himself up, Crovan turned his back on the quickening battle. “We’ll let the Hadari take the brunt. We may have to fight at their side, but I’ll embrace the Raven before I let our people win Saran’s war.”
Drenn nodded and slipped away through the trees.
The phoenix re-buckled and re-sited her sword belt three times before Viktor passed her. Her neighbour in the shield wall scraped a whetstone across a dagger already sharpened to a razor’s kiss. Hands pressed to lockets, sun pendants and wedding rings. Talismans all on a bleak day where even the wind seemed stale and unwilling.
Viktor understood the rituals, but he’d none of his own. You fought, maybe you died. In the aftermath you remembered friend and foe. Until then, there was only the killing.
The twin banners of their centre twitched fitfully in the breeze. The swan banner was one of two Viktor had brought from Tressia. The second streamed to the south, above the walls of Blackridge Farm. The phoenix seemed drab by comparison. But miracles couldn’t be expected from a refashioned tabard.
Revekah and Calenne waited beneath, the former on foot and the latter astride a steed. Their conversation fell silent as Viktor approached. Revekah offered a sharp nod and strode away south to the company of her phoenixes.
“She doesn’t care for me,” rumbled Viktor.
“She’s spent fifteen years hating you,” said Calenne. “That doesn’t pass overnight.”
“It did for you.”
“That’s different. I didn’t hate you – I hated the nightmare I made of you. It’s not the same.”
He grunted. “So long as she stands the line.”
Calenne’s wry smile did little to hide her nervousness. “She’s also spent the last fifteen years fighting a lost cause. Today’s no different.”
Viktor stared out across the gently swaying wheat. Hadari spear points gleamed in the wan light. Emerald pennants twitched in the wind. If only there’d been more time to prepare. Alas, fate mocked intent. You could divert the river’s course, but not cease its flow.
A babble of whispers interrupted his thoughts. A towering, hunch-shouldered form lumbered into sight across the field. Thrice the size of a horse, its leathery, wrinkled flanks and stocky legs were almost hidden beneath a caparison of scale and silk. The beast’s head hung low between its shoulders. A thick horn curved upward from its broad snout. A chariot rumbled into view, drawn thus by a thick yoke across the beast’s neck.
“What is that?” breathed Calenne.
“A grunda,” Viktor replied. “They roam the Empire’s eastern plains. It’ll crash clean through our lines if we give it the chance.” He raised his voice. “Crossbows will bring it down. If they don’t, kraikons will.”
Or one of the ballistae hurriedly dragged from Cragwatch, he added silently. They’d four of the machines, two each in the Katya and Kevor redoubts. The kraikons would need the help. Viktor glimpsed heavy-handled war hammers among the Immortals’ spears. A strong man working a war hammer’s tail-spike could prise the armour apart and set the magic loose. No magic, no kraikon . . . and no hope.
“We hold the line,” he said. “They’ll tire themselves out. Happens all the time on the border.”
Grey heads nodded. Old soldiers from Zanya and the years before. They gave him hope. Experience. Calm. Discipline. These counted for more than youthful vigour.
Viktor raised a fist. “Shields to the fore!”
The line rippled. Shields the height of a tall child slammed into place, forming an unbroken king’s blue line. Short swords slipped from scabbards. Halberds, too cumbersome for the front rank, were readied in the second and third. Viktor would have liked a fourth, but their numbers were too sparse. Already, the back ranks held more militia than he’d have liked. Steel didn’t make a soldier.
Calenne’s horse champed restlessly. “Is it me,” she asked, “or are you enjoying yourself?”
“What makes you say so?” Viktor replied.
“You seem less . . . I don’t know . . . conflicted.”
“I prefer battle’s simplicity,” he admitted. “I’d sooner face a man with a sword in his hand than talk him out of its wielding.”
“So much for Viktor Akadra the silver-tongued charmer.”
“Who says I’m that?”
“Captain Kurkas, for one.”
“Captain Kurkas talks too much.” Viktor scowled in rare embarrassment. Talkative or no, he wished Kurkas were at his side. But there was too much at stake, an
d he needed a trusted voice to the south. If only he’d as much confidence in Masnar and her rabble in the broken ground to the north. “I wish you’d fight on foot.”
Calenne arched an eyebrow at the artless change of topic. “A fine sentiment from a man who refuses a shield.”
“A shield slows me down.”
“And relying on my own feet slows me down. We’ve been over this.”
“The horse makes you a target.”
“It makes me a symbol. We both know I’m no soldier. If I’ve any value, it’s when folk can see me – when they see my mother, if they’re so inclined. They can’t do that if I’m lost among the wheat. Not even if I jump up and down . . . which wouldn’t be very dignified.”
He chuckled at the image of her bobbing up and down like a child on a teeter-tilt. Southwealders shot him startled glances. It seemed mirth was an unfit companion for the legend of Akadra the Phoenix-Slayer. Akadra the Monster.
Good.
“Honestly, Viktor,” said Calenne. “You needn’t worry. I shall do nothing needless.”
He nodded, painfully aware she was there only because of his actions. At his insistence, the proctors had assigned a full dozen simarka to her defence. They couldn’t shield her from arrows, but anything else . . . ?
“I suppose that will have to do.”
“Ever the gallant.” She tugged a length of blue ribbon from her plaits and pressed it into his hand. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A token of my favour to remind you why you’re fighting. That’s the done thing, isn’t it?”
He wound the material through his fingers. “I’ve duty for that.”
“Duty.” She growled the word in gruff imitation. “To the Republic, I suppose?”
“I am the Council’s champion.”
“And today you’re mine also.”
Viktor glanced at the ribbon, and then at Calenne. He marked the tightness about her eyes. The slight, erratic twitch of her lower lip. Had a scryer foretold their friendship in a hand of pentassa cards, he’d have laughed. But friendship there was, nonetheless . . . and perhaps a glimpse of . . .
They both had something more to lose this day.
He shrugged his claymore from his shoulders and knotted the ribbon about the pommel. “Strange. Seems heavier now. And too pretty a gift for a monster.”
“I thought you weren’t a monster?”
“I am today. We must all be as monstrous as events demand.”
“Then go, be a monster. Just remember that the man owes me a ribbon.”
The thunder of drums split the sky. Away beyond the sea of wheat, the golden line swelled.
Viktor pushed his way to the centre of the front line. The wind picked up. The twin banners ripped and snapped, their emblems clear for the first time since dawn. The swan and the phoenix. Together. How things had changed.
“Weapons up!” bellowed Viktor. “And may Lumestra’s light shine for us all!”
The drums crashed in crescendo then faded. Havildars’ swords gleamed along the length of the line.
“Loose!”
Arrows hissed away. Melanna knew those that didn’t fall short would more likely find shields than flesh. But ritual was ritual. Three volleys. Tradition. Once for the goddess, once for the Emperor . . . and once for his heir.
At least, so long as that heir was a son.
The drum-roll crashed back, louder than before. Melanna walked her horse along the cataphracts’ front rank. Spears dipped to her touch, to the blessing of the Ashanal. She acceded with reluctance, and Sera’s silent urging. Was she not the goddess’s chosen? Even if the goddess almost certainly did not approve of what she’d done?
The handmaiden rode a little behind. Her steed was more moonlight and shadow than flesh and bone. Its single pale horn glinted with the same light as its rider’s shard-spear. It bore neither harness nor saddle. Melanna knew of the chandirin from a hundred tales. She’d believed them myth until the herd had arrived with the moonrise. From the eyes widening behind the Immortals’ close-fitting helms, so had many others.
The drums broke off. Arrows blackened the skies for a second time.
At last, she reached her father. Sturdy parentage and a life of battle had gifted Kai Saran with a powerful, barrel-chested physique. One Melanna was glad not to have inherited. Mantled in cloak, crested helm and emerald-studded armour, he looked nothing less than a god – a brother to cold Ashana and radiant Lumestra. The high-browed visage sculpted into the helm’s visor and cheek-pieces only accentuated the comparison.
Melanna spurred past Hal Drannic’s black-cloaked frame and Kos Devren’s unyielding scowl. Close enough to make herself heard over the clamour of the drums. Sera hung back, her chandirin flicking a restless tail.
“Father.”
He stared rigidly ahead across the wheat. “Daughter. Have you come to steal the honour of the first charge?”
“Of course not,” Melanna replied softly. “All I have ever sought is to serve you, as your firstborn should.”
“And if I command you leave the field, as a daughter should . . . Will you do so?”
Still he wouldn’t look at her. Was she such a disappointment that he could barely acknowledge her presence, let alone her desires? Now, on the eve of a battle that might separate them for ever? Melanna’s throat thickened.
“No.” She strove for a balance between respect and firmity. “Because I am your daughter. I am a Saran. If you ask me not to prove my worthiness even as you do the same . . . then I cannot obey.”
Still he stared away. “Then take your disobedience north. Harness it to victory. The warchiefs expect you . . . Ashanal.”
The drums faded. A third hiss of arrows cleaved the grey morning. Melanna caught her breath. The heir’s salute. For all his rigid manner, for all his stern tone, her father had just decreed that his daughter was the equal of a son. Her heart swelled, its burdens forgotten.
“I shall make you proud, Father.”
His hand slipped from the pommel and gripped hers. “You already have, essavim.”
The ridged metal of his gauntlet dug into Melanna’s flesh. She didn’t care.
“Now go,” he said. “You have duties to fulfil. For your goddess, and for your emperor.”
After an eternity beneath the boughs of Davenwood, the trees fell away. Josiri hauled his steed to a standstill, awed and terrified at the spectacle below.
At that distance, warriors were no more than ants marching to a purpose. Walls of spears, fronted by bright colours and stark emblems. A golden wedge of cavalry at the centre, and another of silver and white to the north. The lumbering, implacable tread of grunda wagons. And everywhere, the foreboding promise of the drums.
Josiri beheld it all and regretted his hasty departure from Branghall without taking down his uncle’s armour from its plinth. One more regret to join all the others from recent days.
[[We’re too late.]] Anastacia tightened her grip around Josiri’s waist.
His gaze drifted to the Tressian lines. The thin, truncated Tressian lines that waxed thickest between two uneven palisades. At the northern end, amid the broken ground of the Davenwood Heights, there were no lines to speak of, just clusters of warriors among the rocks. Hopeless. It looked hopeless.
And Calenne was in the thick of it. Because of him.
“No,” he said firmly, as much to convince himself as Anastacia. “We’re not. If I can make Crovan see sense . . .”
But it wasn’t that easy, was it? Convincing Crovan didn’t guarantee victory. It merely shifted the odds. But what else was there?
[[And if you can’t?]]
The drums quickened. Golden cavalry dipped spears and rowelled their horses to the charge. Horns rang out. A ballista shot from the nearer bastion ploughed a bloody furrow in the shadowthorn lines. Arrows arced high and shivered against shields.
A chill gripped Josiri’s gut. He welcomed it. Better fear than the anger and self-loathing of late. For th
e first time in days, he felt like himself.
“Then I’m going down there anyway,” he said. “Alone, if I must.”
Thirty-Seven
The cataphract charge held no subtlety, apt for those who took to the field in armour that shone like the sun. Instead, Kai Saran gathered his finest warriors like a thunderbolt and hurled them across the field.
“Hold the line!” Viktor bellowed above the rising drums. Veterans of Zanya echoed his words. Timber and metal rattled as the line closed up. “If the shields hold, we live!”
He thrust the point of his claymore into the ground and glanced along the line of trampled wheat. There’d been a simple truth to his words. With the line anchored north and south by the redoubts – and further reinforced by kraikons, no less – it could not be outflanked, only breached.
And it would be. There were too many whispered prayers and furtive eyes among the militia. Viktor had seen that same doubt countless times on the border. Recruits saw only the gilded glory of the Hadari armour. Never the vulnerable flesh beneath.
“My lord . . . You need a shield. Begging your pardon, but the buggers’ll ride you down.”
Calmly, deliberately, Viktor set his back to the onrushing Hadari. The speaker was a weather-beaten man in a sea-grey tabard not seen in the Southshires for fifteen years.
“What’s your name?”
Eyes narrowed beneath salt-and-pepper brows. “Zhastov. Corporal Zhastov, used to be.”
The hoof-beats quickened in tempo and volume. Viktor ignored them. “Were you at Zanya?”
“I was.”
“You see me use a shield there?”
“. . . no, my lord.”
“Who won that battle?”
Zhastov’s lip curled in the echo of a snarl. “You did, my lord.”
Viktor nodded. He blotted out the sound of the approaching cataphracts. Instead, he gauged their closeness by the horrified expressions of the southwealder militia. Behind, he glimpsed Calenne beneath the twin banners. Their eyes met. Hers tightened in concern.
Time for a little bombast.
“And do you know why?” He roared, addressing every man and woman within earshot. “Because I am Lord Viktor Akadra! While the Republic stands, so do I! And so do you! You hold this line, and we’ll claim victory together! Now give me a damn cheer! Let the shadowthorns know they’re riding to their deaths!”