by K. J. Parker
On the landing he saw most of the occupants of the neighbouring rooms, men he’d seen now and again but never spoken to. They were in shirts or coats, and they looked bewildered and terrified. Two men in armour were handing out weapons.
“You,” one of them said. “You’re no Vei. You get a bow.”
“I’m a terrible shot.”
A bow and a quiver forced their way into his hands. “Bullshit. Archers to the front wall, fifth level. That’s you,” the man clarified. “Move!”
He had no idea how to get to the front wall, fifth level. But out in the quadrangle he saw a squad of archers, half a dozen or so, jogging grimly across the grass. He ran and caught up with them. He heard a horrible thumping noise that made the ground shake.
He grabbed the arm of one of the archers. “What’s happening?”
“We’re being attacked.”
“Who by?”
The archer just looked blank. They started running up a long staircase, two steps at a time. Chanso kept up for as long as he could, but then they pulled ahead. He followed, gasping for breath.
At the top of the stairs he saw Lonjamen, talking to a man in armour. By the time he reached him, they’d finished their conversation and Lonjamen was walking away. Chanso called out his name.
Lonjamen glanced at him. “Get with the other archers,” he said.
“What’s going on? Who’s attacking us?”
“I don’t know, do I?” Lonjamen walked away, then turned. “Down the corridor, third left, brings you out on to the north gallery. Keep going till you see a staircase going up. Three flights, you’ll be there. Good luck,” he added, and disappeared through a doorway.
Another thump; the floor shook. Chanso slipped, fell on his left knee, jumped up again. Hell of a time for an earthquake. He did as Lonjamen had told him and came out into the night air. He was on a sort of huge balcony with a high stone wall in front of him. It was almost as bright as daylight, but the wrong colour.
“Get down,” someone shouted at him. That made no sense. Then a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and a foot rammed the inside of his knee, forcing him into a crouch. “Shrapnel,” a voice bellowed in his ear. “Bloody great chunks of flying rock. They’ll take your head off.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
A hand clamped to the back of his neck guided him tight up against the rampart. “Artillery,” the voice said. “They got two barges anchored out there mounted with siege engines, mangonels probably. They splashed a couple of bulbs of Vesani fire against the walls, just so they could see to aim, and now they’re trying to shoot out the gate.”
Chanso turned his head and saw a helmet, Ironshirt type, with cheek-guards that almost met at the front. “Who are they?”
“Search me,” said the helmet. “My guess is, somebody who wants a million angels. What else’ve we got worth taking?”
Something whistled through the air, a swishing sound, like a broom sweeping. Then a thump that made Chanso’s ears ring, and the stonework under him trembled again. Then there was a lot of shouting. The helmet swore and stood up. A voice close by called out, “Archers front and centre!”
A hand grabbed Chanso’s shirt. “That’s us,” the voice said. “Well, come on.”
He stood up and followed the armoured man, who was running along the parapet. A line of archers were standing up out of the shadows. Chanso looked out over the parapet and saw the sea, gleaming with yellow. At least five black shapes broke up the pattern of the waves. Directly below where he was standing was the causeway that carried the path up to the main gate. The gate itself was gone, just a ragged hole in the stonework, ugly as smashed teeth. The walls looked like they were dripping with liquid fire.
Someone shoved him and told him to move, then pushed past him. He stayed where he was. Up the causeway, maybe two hundred yards away, something weird and shapeless was crawling up the causeway. He stared at it, then realised it was a long, dense column of men, with shields locked together in front and at the sides, marching in perfect step. He could hear a voice calling out, ang, dui—the same words the shepherd had used; of course, the Imperial for one, two.
“On my mark,” someone yelled, about twenty yards away to his left. “Nock arrows.”
Chanso remembered he was holding a bow. He considered it quickly. It wasn’t anything like he was used to; it was long, taller than he was, and straight, made of one piece of wood. Primitive. He fumbled an arrow out of the quiver he’d been given. It was heavy, as thick as his little finger, and far too long for him. He clipped it on to the string. Presumably he was supposed to shoot at the men on the causeway, as soon as they came in range. It struck him as a bizarre thing to do. Even with the bright light of the burning stuff on the walls, it was far too dark for any sort of accurate aiming. He’d always been taught, don’t shoot till you can see the whites of their eyes. And who were they, anyway?
“Draw,” yelled the voice, so he drew. The bow was heavy, but instead of stacking, it drew evenly until his thumbnail brushed the corner of his mouth; at which point, the voice yelled, “Loose!” He hadn’t been told what to aim at, so he held somewhere vague over the heads of the men on the causeway, and let the string pull through his fingers. He watched the arrow climb, ebb and drop; it clattered against the stonework, which told him he was six feet low.
“Nock,” the voice commanded; by the time it said, “Draw,” the line of shields was much closer, he could make out their burnished steel rims. He drew, holding a man’s height above the line of advancing helmets. On “Loose,” he let go, and watched his arrow fly into a shield. It stuck without penetrating, and the man carrying it kept on walking. No cast to these stupid bows. Now if he’d had his bow—He remembered that he no longer owned one: no bow; he didn’t own anything any more. Instead, he belonged, to this strange island. He nocked before the order was called, looking for something sensible to shoot at; caught sight of a bare head, seventy yards away among the helmets. The voice told him to draw; he kept his eye fixed on the bare head, drew, lifting the arrowhead high; intuition whispered to him that a little bit of left wouldn’t hurt. Loose, howled the voice, and his arrow soared, swooped, clattered off the point of a helmet a foot or so from the bare head, flicked up like a spark from a wet fire and flashed away out of sight. Close, but no bloody good at all.
His next four shots went high; then the voice was yelling something different: down, down, off the wall. Men were running past him; he didn’t dare move for fear of being knocked off his feet. When a gap appeared, he darted into it and followed the man in front of him. No point asking where they were going, clearly nobody knew; something must be happening, whether it was good or bad was anybody’s guess. As he ran, it occurred to him that he’d just tried to kill somebody, and felt relieved that he’d failed.
He was clattering down a spiral staircase, petrified of losing his footing, didn’t dare slow down for fear of the man right behind him. Then a long sprint down a corridor, then more stairs, then a scrum, with the man behind him shoving him against the back of the man in front; he clung to the bow and managed to keep it from being wrenched out of his hand, but he lost his grip on the quiver and felt it being pulled from his fingers. A bow but no arrows. Then he stumbled out into fresh air. He turned to look for the quiver, but the men behind him wouldn’t let him stop. The voice was calling, “Line out”; he didn’t know what that meant, but the men in front of him and behind him did. He found himself standing in a line across one of the quadrangles—he didn’t know which one—facing a gateway about forty yards away. The gate was closed. He turned to the man on his left, about six feet away. “Arrows,” he called out. “I haven’t got any.” The man didn’t seem to hear.
One of those terrible thumps, not quite so loud, and the ground didn’t move; the sound bounced, like a beat on a drum. The voice yelled, “Nock”; he mimed nocking an arrow. Another thump, but different. It had a tearing undertone, the crackle of splintering wood, and Chanso realised it was the
gate in front of him. He was suddenly terrified; on the other side of the gate was a monster so strong it could smash cross-plied oak. An urge to run swept over him, too strong to resist; he wanted to glance behind him, for somewhere to run to, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the gate. A third thump; the voice yelled, “Draw!” but nobody moved; the gate had flown open and was hanging like broken wings. “Loose,” yelled the voice, but Chanso was backing away; he could see it coming through the smashed gate, the horrible thing with shields for scales. He dropped the bow and ran, dimly aware that he wasn’t alone.
He was running at a wall, and he had no idea if there were doors in it, or where they led to, or how far behind him the monster was, whether it was gaining on him. Then his foot caught in something; he pitched forward, landed painfully on his knees and elbows; as he scrambled to get up, something landed hard in the small of his back and flew over his head, a swirling black shape like an enormous crow that turned into a man running, not looking back. He was winded, couldn’t breathe. The ground he lay on was shaking. He forced himself to his feet, only to be knocked spinning by a hard, flat blow; then he was on his back, and a forest of boots was all around his head. He felt one land on his knee, another in his solar plexus; one pressed down on the side of his head but slipped off; he felt his scalp tear under the hobnails. He balled his hands into fists; the boots had swept over him and passed on. He heard shouting, and breaking wood.
He heard a voice, which he knew was the Great Smith, whispering: stay perfectly still; don’t move. It was a clear voice, calm, very soft but he could hear it perfectly over all the noise. He did as he was told, awaiting further instructions.
He waited a long time, and no more instructions came. The other noises were further away now. He opened his eyes and saw the faint red of sunrise. He breathed in and out a few times; it hurt, but not badly. He rolled on to his side and held still while he counted: ang, dui, tin. Then, taking his time, he got to his feet and looked around.
The quadrangle was deserted, apart from a handful of body shapes on the ground, which didn’t concern him. No sign of the monster, or the other archers. Behind him, much fainter, he could hear the roars and crunches of the monster; he guessed it had found its way through the solid wall and was busy elsewhere. He took a step, but his left knee yelled pain at him. Screw you, he told it, and limped the shortest way across the quadrangle until he came to a wall. Close by was a door, slightly ajar, with yellow light leaking out round it. He grabbed the handle, hung from it while he manufactured some strength, dragged the door open and fell through it, into an empty room; a scholar’s room, with books and papers and a big, fat, wonderful chair. He closed the door, hobbled over to the chair and sat in it.
The light came from a lamp on a table. He considered it. Would light attract the monster? He gave it some thought and decided no, probably not. He looked down at his knee, which was a red, sticky mess, and his hands, which were in pretty fair shape. That’s me done for today, he told himself. That’s more than enough for one day.
He couldn’t possibly have fallen asleep, not in the middle of a battle; but he opened his eyes suddenly, just as the door began to open. It swung wide towards him; and there in the doorway was the monster.
It had chosen to take the form of a gigantic steel man; an Imperial, a Blueskin—Chanso had heard of them but never seen one—unhelmeted, with a spreading mane of black hair pouring down over his shoulders like floodwater; in his hand was a sword, and the scales of his armour sparkled golden in the glow of the lamp. Chanso froze, just in case the monster might possibly overlook him if he kept perfectly still. But the monster’s black eyes were on him, gazing at him, and he spoke—
The Angel, Reversed
Major Genseric opened the door and looked inside, but it was only someone’s study. There was a boy, sitting behind a desk, probably a student or a servant. Not a threat. He looked petrified, and faintly comic.
“Where’s the library?” Genseric asked.
The boy stared at him; scared, half-witted, maybe both. “The library,” Genseric repeated slowly. “Big room full of books. Well?”
The boy struggled for a moment, then said, “Sorry, don’t know.”
Didn’t know or wasn’t telling; actually, didn’t know was entirely possible, given the look on his face. Not just gormless; rather, a bottomless pit into which gorm falls and is utterly consumed. “Oh, for God’s sake,” Genseric snapped, and slammed the door.
There were three more doors in that section of wall. One opened on a steep staircase and the other two were locked, and there simply wasn’t time—Come on, Genseric told himself, the most famous library in the known world, it’s got to be somewhere. Damn this place to hell. Why couldn’t someone have dug up a floorplan? Why couldn’t there be any signs?
He was standing in the middle of the quadrangle feeling helpless and annoyed when Captain Sirubat turned up. “We’ve found it,” he called out.
“Hoo-bloody-ray,” said Genseric. “Where? No, don’t point. Tell me, in words.”
“Through that door there,” said the captain, “up two flights, turn left down a corridor, third door on your right, brings you to some more stairs—”
Genseric held up his hand. “Anyway,” he said, “you found it. Right, now we can get on. Where’s the head man?”
“In the gatehouse,” the captain said. Pause. “Through that arch there, left, you can’t miss it.”
The head man, Genseric reminded himself, was the Principal; not just the chief administrator of what was probably—grey area—a sovereign nation, but also a considerable scholar and the greatest living authority on metallurgy. He took several deep breaths to calm himself down, sheathed his sword and went in.
The gatehouse must’ve taken a direct hit from the mangonel, because half of it wasn’t there any more. Most of the roof was on the floor, and the furniture was smashed under fallen rubble. The man he’d come to see was sitting on the only survivor, a small gate-leg table. He was dirty and covered in dust, but apparently otherwise unharmed. He looked stunned, as if he was trying to figure out if all this was real or just an elaborate practical joke.
“Principal Ertan,” Genseric said. The wretched man looked up at him. “I’m Major Genseric. Your people are in my way.”
The Principal opened his mouth but said nothing.
“You’ve got a hundred students crowded up the staircase to my lady’s chamber,” Genseric said. “Human shield, presumably. I really don’t want to hurt them if I can help it.”
No answer. Why do we have to do this? Genseric thought. It’s so pointless, and these people aren’t the enemy. They’re just— He sighed. “So here’s the threat,” he said. “Clear them out of there, or my men will burn down your library.”
For a moment, Genseric thought the Principal was going to choke to death. He wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure he knew what to do. But then the Principal said, “You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. They tell me there’s a quarter of a million books in there. I never realised there were that many in the whole world.” He paused, then said, “Up to you. Let us take what we came for and we’ll be on our way, no more fuss, nobody gets hurt, no more damage.”
He counted to five under his breath. The Principal hadn’t moved.
“We’ve done our best,” he said. “We haven’t shot a single arrow, and as far as I know, none of your people have been killed. You’ve been doing your damnedest to hurt us, but that’s all right. I understand. But you’ve lost, there’s nothing more you can do, so please be sensible and help me to keep the damage to a minimum.”
He waited. Maybe the poor fool had lost the use of his tongue. It took some people that way, he’d read somewhere. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Say something.”
“No,” the Principal said.
“What? For crying out loud, man, you’re talking about several hundred lives. I’m a soldier, not a butcher. Do you understand what I’m saying? First I’ll set fire to the library. The
n I’ll send my men in to clear the staircase. It’ll be the greatest crime against humanity in all of history, and all because you’re so damn stubborn. Don’t you get it? It’s over. You can’t stop me. What you can do is help me prevent a fucking disaster. Well?”
He realised he’d been shouting, which he hadn’t wanted to do. But the fool was just sitting there, understanding and not giving in. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. And then a thought occurred to him, and he thought, Of course, brilliant.
He turned to the captain, who was right behind him. “Did we get any of this man’s personal staff?”
“Two, sir. Chief secretary and deputy principal.”
“They’ll do.” The Principal’s eyes were wide with horror. “Oh, pull yourself together, I’m not going to hurt them,” Genseric snapped. “Right, fetch them in here, quick as you like.”
Curious specimens: one was a youngish no Vei, the other a middle-aged woman. The no Vei was missing his right thumb; Genseric was pleased to see his people had bandaged it neatly, properly. The woman had blood on her dress, but seemed unhurt. “Names,” he snapped.
The woman gave him a murderous scowl. “I’m Lonjamen,” the no Vei said quickly. “This is Emphianassa.”
“Fine,” Genseric said. “Now listen to me. I’ve just told your chief here that if he doesn’t get his human shield off the stairs to the top tower, I’m going to burn the library.”
The woman yelled something at him that he decided he hadn’t quite heard. “And then,” he went on, “I’ll have no choice but to clear that stair, any way I can. Your chief’s just told me, go ahead. Is that what you want? You two. Don’t look at him, I’m talking to you.”
The woman had gone white as linen. The no Vei was staring at him as though at an approaching tidal wave. “No,” he said. “I take it there’s an alternative.”