Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  The Lord Protector laughed. ‘Is that the closest to an apology I’ll get out of you?’

  The man winced, his facial scars twitching. ‘They came all right,’ he admitted. ‘But he came with them.’

  Hiam shook his head. Poor Quint – the man apologizes then takes it away with his next breath. ‘Yes, he came. And his men will buy us the time we need till the end of the season. Then, come spring and summer, we will help reinstall him. He will only be on his throne because of us. And our price will be high. Very high. We will keep him there for ten thousand men a year … for the next ten years.’

  Quint’s brows rose as he considered this immense number. He nodded his approval. It seemed Hiam would have this ruler squirming beneath the butt of his spear. As it should be. Every ruler from Stygg to Jourilan ought to consider themselves so indebted to us. It was only right.

  ‘Sir,’ Shool said, speaking up, ‘what of this claim that the Betrayer, Stonewielder, is coming to attack us? His fleet is in Banith.’

  Hiam just shook his head. ‘Too much to hope for, I should think. Let him cripple his forces in some disastrous attempt at a landing. Then let the broken remnants limp back to Rool. It will be all that much easier to sweep them away come the spring.’

  ‘But, Stonewielder …’

  Hiam glanced back. Ah, those rumours. Damn the apocalyptic leanings of these mystics of the Lady. I, too, felt their fascination once. There had been much alarm and uncertainty then … and I yielded to Cullel, allowing him to go. How I regret that now! It was … shameful. He cleared his throat. ‘He is only one man, Shool. One man cannot undo the wall.’

  ‘Then we just have to last the season,’ Quint growled.

  Young Shool was quite shocked by this blunt admission. Hiam clenched his teeth – Quint never watched his tongue and he wished he would. This time, however, he could not bring himself to dismiss the grim forecast. Yes, Quint. We just have to last.

  * * *

  The Army of Reform finally reached the muddy snow-wreathed fields on the outskirts of the walled city of Ring. It gathered up its long trailing tail of camp followers, wagons, and petty merchants, into its own informal crowded township. The circumstances reminded Ivanr forcibly of Blight. Except that Ring city was some hundred times the size of Blight and they dared not enter it for fear of drowning in its sea of citizenry. In any case, smoke plumed over its red and black tiled rooftops and towers as Reformist factions battled Loyalists for control of precincts. One tall bell tower and chapel of the Lady burned even as Ivanr watched from the hillside overlooking the walls.

  Inland, to the north, just on this side of the Lesser White River, lay the encampment of the Jourilan Imperial Army. Or rather, a tent city of thousands including the Emperor’s eldest son, rumoured to have been blessed by the Lady herself. He would lead the charge of the Jourilan aristocracy, which would sweep these rag-tag upstart peasants from the field – or so he no doubt imagined. And Ivanr could not help but half agree. This time he imagined they could not count on rain or some other miracle to deliver them, though it was overcast and cold, damned cold. The depths of the Stormrider-induced winter that tormented this region so.

  He ducked back into his tent. Martal was overseeing the disposition of the troops. He knew she would forbid it, but he intended to be there in the front line. It would hearten these citizen-soldiers to see him there. So far it looked as if the foreign woman was proceeding as before, arranging pike formations backed by archers. Ivanr pulled his robes tighter about himself and paced his tent, unable to eat. The Imperials had seen this trick already and he’d spotted their response: their own archers and infantry milled in huge numbers in that encampment.

  They would answer volley for volley. And who would win? Time, it seemed to him, was not on their side. And somewhere within that sprawling tent city was the Priestess herself. The Imperials threatened to execute her tomorrow, at dawn. What would be the army’s response? They had already lost Beneth. He would have to be there in the front lines to sense their mood, to respond, and, perhaps … to intervene.

  A sigh from behind made him spin, shortsword appearing from his robes. Sister Gosh sat cross-legged on a carpet. She arched a brow at the pointed weapon, and Ivanr sheathed it beneath his robes. The old witch looked exhausted. Her thick layered skirts and shawls were dirtier than ever and she was haggard, her hair a rat’s nest of matted dirty knots.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he growled, though he was relieved to see her.

  ‘Hiding.’

  ‘What? Hiding? Why?’

  The old woman pulled a silver flask from within her shawls, took a quick sip and sighed her pleasure. ‘Because I’m being hunted, that’s why.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t know. Some betrayer, I’m sure. There’s almost none of us left. If anyone other than I approaches you, don’t trust them, yes?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  She relaxed, letting out a long breath, and eased her shoulders. ‘Good, good.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  The woman’s gaze took on a measuring cast as she seemed to examine him. ‘The end of everything, Ivanr.’

  ‘What? The end of the world?’

  She grimaced her disgust. ‘No, no! Just change. The end of one order and the possible beginning of another. Though some do choose to see that as the end of everything, yes. In three days it will come. All I can see is that you must remember your vow, Ivanr. That is all that comes to me. Remember that.’

  ‘Well, if you say so. I will try.’

  ‘Very good.’ A spasm took the woman and she grimaced, forcing down the pain. ‘I’m sorry that I cannot be of more help, but I will be fighting my own battle – you can be sure of that.’

  ‘I understand. Will I not … see you?’

  Grunting, the woman tried to rise. Ivanr leapt to help her up. ‘Thank you. Who is to say? Perhaps we will see each other again. I do not know. But I don’t think so.’ She crossed to the tent front.

  ‘What of the battle?’

  Sister Gosh paused at the flap. ‘Trust Martal, Ivanr. Trust her. Yes?’ She arched a brow again.

  He inclined his head in assent, smiling. ‘If you say so.’

  She did not appear convinced by his contriteness, but accepted the gesture all the same. ‘Fare well, Ivanr. May all the gods guide you.’

  ‘Fare well.’

  After she left, he sat for some time, reflecting. Yes, trust Martal. Trust this foreign Malazan. That was the question, wasn’t it?

  Through the night he was woken by the noise of construction, of mattocks banging and heavy weights falling. But no alarms sounded and he eased back into sleep – it seemed Martal was constructing her siege weapons. Rather too early, he thought.

  In the morning he broke his fast with hot tea and bread. When he pushed open the tent flap he was looking at a blizzard of swirling snow, and beyond that the walls of a fortress. He stared, turned a full circle. Encompassing the entire Army of Reform camp rose plank-and-beam walls extending between the tall carriages that now reared like towers in castle battlements.

  By all the gods above and below! A fortress! The damned woman has built a fortress!

  He walked through the camp, trying not to gape. How did she do it? Reaching the nearest wall he noticed that the inner sides, backs and fronts of the carriages had been disassembled. They now stood as open-backed, two-floored archers’ platforms. Their bottom floors were almost entirely taken up by vicious-looking ballistae that appeared able to shoot multiple bolts in a fan-shaped pattern. The woman was ready for her own siege. Nodding to the troops nearby, he climbed a ladder to a narrow catwalk that ran behind the wall. Turning left and right, he peered all along the curve of the fortress.

  Amazing – but really, she didn’t mean to yield the field to the Imperials, did she? They’d just stand back and starve them out. The soldiers gathered at the wall did not appear pleased by their accomplishment; they were almost all staring silently out over the fields and Iv
anr turned. There, halfway between the armies, stood a pyre of heaped wood.

  The Imperials had also been busy last night.

  While Ivanr watched, a detachment of some fifty horsemen slowly approached from the Imperial side. With them came a cart pulled by an ox and in the cart a slim figure in rags. Behind, the heavy cavalry were already in line, mounted and armed, pennants limp. Bearing witness. More and more men and women of the Army of Reform gathered now on the walls. He saw Martal in her black armour gazing from a nearby carriage.

  Gods. What will happen? Will they rush out in a maddened fury? Isn’t that what these Imperials want? Disorder, blind rage?

  Yet he sensed no rage around him. Only a quiet watchfulness; a collective breath held.

  The detachment gathered to one side of the pyre. The woman – the Priestess, Ivanr could only assume from this distance – was dragged out. A priest of the Lady read charges, all in silence through the blowing snow. A tall figure in banded armour that glittered as if chased in gold led the detachment – the Emperor’s eldest son, Ranur the Third? He sat slumped forward, helm under an arm, apparently bored.

  The woman was pulled up the tall heap and tied to a pole. Brands were thrust into the piled bracken, but due to the snow and sleet the pyre was reluctant to start. The Imperial soldiers tried to coax the fire to life, but it only smouldered. The woman stood straight throughout it all, unmoving, not even attempting to speak. Often, Ivanr knew, such victims had their tongues cut out prior to their execution.

  The crowds of the Army of Reform massed on the walls and carriages and had to be pushed back as the plank-and-pillar construction could not support such a weight. The soldiers were sullen, but cooperative. The anger was now palpable to Ivanr – a simmering dark rage born of offence at the indignity being played out before them.

  The gold-armoured figure dismounted, waving and giving orders. The woman was dragged from the smoking pyre and forced down to her knees. The man drew his sword. First, he pointed the blade in their direction in a gesture that needed no words, then he raised it over his head in both hands and brought it down in a clean sweeping cut. The Priestess’s head fell away and the troopers released her body, letting it slump into the mud and melting snow.

  The wall Ivanr stood upon seemed to shake as hundreds flinched as one with that stroke.

  Through the blustering snow the Imperials unlimbered a pike, set the head upon it, and left it standing on the field. They then mounted up and rode off, the ox cart bringing up the rear.

  So ended the Priestess who brought the message of tolerance and worship of all deities to the subcontinent. What legends would arise, he wondered, from this day? That the fire refused to harm her holy flesh? That she went bravely to her end, scorning her tormentors? That the very sky wept to see it? For his part, Ivanr saw a sad and tragic end to a young life. A corpse in the mud and a head on a pike. He saw waste and a useless unnecessary gesture that solved nothing. Why did she comply? What lesson was there here for anyone?

  Horns blaring within the compound brought Ivanr out of his reflections. The call for forming up? What was Martal thinking? He went to track her down. Pushing his way through the milling infantry, he came to the side of her big black stallion, took hold of her stirrup. ‘What are you doing?’

  She peered down at him, steadied her mount. ‘What I must, Ivanr. And I’m sorry … she meant something to you, I know that.’

  ‘You build walls then you charge out on to the field? You’re doing what they want!’

  ‘Let’s hope they think so.’ She kneed her mount forward.

  Yet perhaps you are, Martal. He climbed the nearest wall offering a view over the western fields. Crowds pushed a number of carriages aside and like an unruly mob the horde of pike-wielding infantry was disgorged from the fortress. They washed down the gentle slope, pikes upright, a rustling forest on the move. From the distant Imperial encampment horns answered the challenge. The heavy cavalry cantered forward.

  Form up, damn you! What are you waiting for? More horns sounded, an urgent clarion call. The armoured mounts picked up their pace. Seven distinct waves sorted themselves out among the hundreds of cavalry. For now the lances remained upright, couched at hips – he knew they would not be lowered until the last possible moment.

  Panic appeared to grip the pike men and women. They milled in a shapeless mass, flinching back towards the fortress walls. Form up! Have you forgotten everything? Then a final brilliant blast upon the Imperial horns and the pace surged into a charge. Lances edged forward at an angle. Ivanr felt the reverberation of tons of flesh and iron pounding the ground.

  The infantry flinched back in a near-retreat to the walls, only to hold fast at the last possible moment, presenting a layered serried fence of iron blades. And in their midst Martal, mounted, bellowing orders.

  Ivanr clenched the wood in a spasm as the iron wave of armoured men and horse came on, charging into the wall of set pikes. The crash sent rippling shockwaves through the massed infantry. Wood shattered, horses screamed, wounded coursers tumbled through two, three ranks. The charge penetrated much farther than any Ivanr had yet witnessed. Men and women scrambled over the fallen cavalrymen and pulled down those caught in the press, knives thrusting through gaps and visors.

  Yet Ivanr watched with dread as behind, down the slope, the second wave now surged forward to charge, lances descending. Martal was waving, sending orders. Horns sounded the re-form. The mass of infantry retreated yet again to set their lines just behind the carnage of the first wave. Ivanr watched in amazement as the second came on regardless, unflinching, as if their own impetus would carry them through the mass of flesh and out the other side. Many leapt the fallen horses and men; some failed, clipping the corpses or wounded to tumble through the lines like thrown boulders. And into these gaps further cavalry pressed, lances shattered, drawing swords.

  The impact penetrated even through to the wall, causing it to shudder as horseflesh and impetus struck unyielding iron. A new horn sounded among the Reform ranks: withdrawal.

  Withdraw! Why even sortie in the first place? For this? Martal! What were you thinking?

  And the third wave came thundering on. Pikes steady, the Reform infantry withdrew step by step, rear ranks filing back into the fortress. And beyond, far across the field, the Imperial archers were left far behind. They’d outstripped their support! Was this— A noise as of a forest of wood bending brought Ivanr’s attention around.

  The enclosed ground within the fortress was one solid mass of archers. Bows raised almost vertical, they strained, arrows nocked.

  The third wave of cavalry smashed into the triple-layered wall of razor iron. The impact drove through to shock the wall as infantry hammered back into it. A nearby carriage rocked as Imperial cavalry pressed upon it. A barked order brought the archers on the wall rearing up, firing at will. No need for great range now, he saw: all that was required was a quick rate of fire. Secondary banging and clattering shook the carriage and he peered down to see the shutters swinging open. With a shuddering recoil the ballistae let loose, clearing the field before it in a blast of four-foot iron bolts.

  Behind him a great thrumming shook the air and a sleet-like hissing rose overhead. The archers on the walls and carriages loosed as well and Ivanr flinched, ducking. The salvo came sheeting down for the most part just beyond the wall of pikes, though some did strike their own. The fusillade raked the field, leaving carnage behind. Complete slaughter. Horses fell kicking, crippled. Men tumbled, tufted like targets. The ground itself was stubbled like a field after harvest. The following cavalry waves heaved to right and left, sloughing aside, curving back upon themselves. A further salvo chased them off. The chevrons turned, coursing in a broad circle, unwilling to close.

  The remaining pike infantry slowly withdrew by brigade, all in order, and the carriages were pushed back into place.

  Ivanr looked out upon the field. Already snow drifted wind-tossed over bodies. Wounded called. Parties slipped out through n
arrow doors to retrieve Reform wounded, at the same time finishing off any Imperials. The Imperial cavalry cantered back to their encampment, pennants flying and plumes still high. He went to find Martal.

  Aides surrounded her: she sat on a field stool while a bonecutter removed her armour. Blood splashed her left side. Her cuirass lay beside her and her mail-and-leather hauberk underpadding came off over her head revealing a deep gash high under her left arm. Whatever Ivanr might have wanted to say he set aside. When she saw him, a weary smile came to her glistening sweat-sheathed face. ‘Not how you would have done it, eh, Ivanr?’ she said while the bonecutter wrapped her torso.

  ‘No,’ he allowed. ‘But maybe that’s how it had to be done.’

  ‘Not going easy on me, are you?’ She winced as the cutter had her raised up.

  ‘She has to rest,’ the man said to Ivanr, who nodded. Two aides helped her walk off.

  Drawing Ivanr aside, the grey-haired medic asked, ‘Was that her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This morning. Was that the Priestess?’

  Ivanr paused, thinking. How to answer that? Gods, what an awful choice to have to make! Finally, he nodded. ‘Yes. I think it was.’

  ‘But nothing happened,’ the man said as he wiped the blood from his hands.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘When she died – nothing happened.’

  Ivanr took a deep breath. ‘No. Nothing. She was just a woman who carried a message. And that message hasn’t died, has it?’

  The old man nodded, taking his meaning. ‘Perhaps that is part of her message.’

  ‘I believe so.’

  He bent closer, lowered his voice. ‘And this morning …’ He inclined his head to the fields beyond. ‘What is your estimation?’

  Once more Ivanr considered his answer. Personally, he thought it a draw but he knew he mustn’t say that. He said, loudly, so that all could overhear, ‘Every day they haven’t broken us is a victory for us.’