Cantex had only one thing in mind, though. His eyes jerked up to the inner rampart that guarded the nobles’ enclosure. While the outer one presented a fairly sheer surface to the world, sheathed in stone, this inner rampart was a high earth bank with a timber palisade atop it. He could see figures moving about on that wall.
Somehow he felt sure that was where the queen was. She was no wilting flower, and certainly not afraid of the imperial army at her gates, but she was also clever, from what the prince had said. She would fight when she had to, but she would not put herself in the path of imperial artillery or arrows, for that was not brave, but foolish. Yes, the queen would be in that royal enclosure.
He was running again a moment later, that inner rampart his objective, though with no idea how he was going to cross it and find the queen. He had always been lucky, though. His friends had chided him for how often he’d relied on that luck. Well, here he was, needing one last breath from the goddess of fortune, fogging the spots of the dice before he threw them. He sent a prayer up to her to that very effect. She might be a fickle goddess, but she was his fickle goddess.
He ran.
The further he moved from the western rampart, the less populated the place was. The reinforcements, who were still emerging from Steinvic’s living area, albeit slower and fewer in number, were all back towards the rampart. He ran along the edge of the inhabited area, the stream gulley to his left. Momentarily, he considered pulling his way along that narrow culvert once more, but he could remember yesterday all too well – how long it had taken.
And what if he got stuck? After all, he’d not tried it with a sword yesterday. At best the weapon would hamper and slow him. At worst, he might get jammed in there with it. No, the culvert was out. If his luck truly held, he could perhaps run around to the main gate and issue a challenge. It was distinctly possible, from what he’d heard of her, that this queen would accept the challenge.
No. If she didn’t, then he’d die at the gate, probably peppered with arrows, and vengeance would not be served. That left only one way.
As he neared the rampart, he realised with a flood of relief that the goddess had heard him. His dice had come up fives once more. Something was happening, and the men atop the walls were looking the other way at something, paying no attention to the western side. Better still, his own awareness was drawn back over his shoulder by the puffing of breath, only to see that same engineer and half a dozen of the prince’s men pounding across the grass in an effort to catch up with him.
‘Get me…’ he called to them between heaving breaths as he ran, ‘…over those walls… and inside.’
And then he was struggling upwards, still trying to run, climbing the slope of the earth ramparts beneath the timber palisade, his small, ragtag force at his heel. Lacking a sheath, since he’d thrown his aside in his hurry to get involved, he tucked his sword through his belt, hoping the hand guard would prevent it from sliding through.
He reached the timbers of the palisade and threw himself at them, scrabbling for purchase, but there was none to be found on these smooth, adzed, seasoned logs. Dismay filling him, he grabbed, grasped and pulled, his hands sliding painfully over the timbers, gathering occasional splinters.
Suddenly he was moving upwards, his hands doing none of the work bar guiding his ascent, as the warriors below him lifted him and heaved him aloft towards the rampart top. His fingers closed on the timber parapet and he was pulling, hauling himself over the top to fall to the walkway beyond. He sprang upright after a mere moment, dragging his sword from his belt with only a little difficulty. Even then it took a few heartbeats for the enemy to realise he was there. As he readied himself, sword out to the side, the closest warrior on the walkway turned towards him, his face contorting with surprise and anger.
A number of things pressed on Cantex’s senses at one and the same time. Behind him, another set of boots landed on the timber walkway with a thud, and the engineer’s voice said ‘Got your back, sir.’
But neither this, nor the snarling warrior now advancing on him with murderous intent, were what truly grasped his attention. Nor even was the realisation that the assault in the south had been victorious. It seemed that what had been distracting the men on the rampart at his approach had been the sight of three legions pouring over the south rampart and meeting the Albantes there in brutal man-on-man fighting. Yet it was not that that filled his thoughts.
What truly grasped Cantex’s focus was what was happening at the gate to the royal enclosure. Two poles had been set up on the upper walkway, one on each side of the portal. The far one already held a bearded, dirty head that Cantex could just about make out enough detail of to recognise the ambassador who had died in the pool the previous day. But even as he watched, the head was also struck savagely from Convocus’ body and lifted to the top of the second sharpened pole.
Cantex felt ice flow through his veins as a tall, wiry female with pale skin and red hair raised the head of his friend and jammed it down onto the spike, twisting it so that the agonised, disembodied tribune’s dreadful expression would face anyone approaching the gate of the royal enclosure.
Rage swelled within Cantex. Somehow seeing such unsightly mutilation of Convocus’ body was worse even than knowing that he was dead. The warrior charged along the wall top towards him, and Cantex roared at him as he closed, then dropped a foot, ducking to his right and cutting across to the left. His blade slammed between the man’s ribs and punched through his chest from side to side, carving all the important matter in between.
The warrior lurched and gurgled, spat something in his native tongue, and then fell away down the inner slope of the rampart as Cantex jerked his blade back out. Other warriors were coming for him now, and the engineer, who had been joined over the palisade by one of the prince’s men, had turned to take on the men running towards them from the other direction. Two warriors closed on Cantex.
One swung, while the other stabbed out. In dancing aside from the former, the tribune was left with no choice but to place himself in danger of the other. The enemy swing swept past him and struck the timber wall.
Cantex’s own blade came down, desperately, at the last moment, to turn aside the stab. The urgent parry saved his life, but not his skin. Instead of plunging straight into the heart, deep in the chest, the blow, nudged downwards, hit him in the right thigh just below the hip, carving deep into the muscle.
Cantex yelped, and yet his eyes immediately took in both his enemies and then slid between them to the female figure in the blue cloak, who had turned at this commotion and was now peering with interest at Cantex.
The queen. His luck had held. The goddess was with him still.
His sword took the first man – the one who’d swung his blade – in the throat, ripping into everything, twisting with a turn of the wrist to mince the life-carrying organs, and then ripping out amid a spray of blood and gore.
The man who’d thrust at him had a moment of grace, but his blow had been heavy and he’d put all his weight into it, his momentum carrying him forward and down with Cantex’s parry. He took precious moments to recover, straighten, and pull back his weapon for another blow. As that sword came again, Cantex’s attention had returned to him. Their swords met with the ring of iron, and then the blades grated along one another with a bone-chilling rasp. The man was strong and was struggling for control of the weapons, hoping to push the tribune’s blade aside and free his own for the killing blow.
The warrior snarled something through bared teeth, four of which were missing and two brown and ruined. Cantex slammed his forehead into that grin, feeling the snap of teeth as they cut the flesh of his scalp. The man screamed and reeled, the swords suddenly free from pressure. Cantex lifted his and brought it down with a chopping motion into the join between the man’s neck and shoulder. The scream intensified and the tribune heaved the dying, ruin-faced man out of the way, tipping him down the slope into the compound.
He took a step forward and co
llapsed, feeling his weight slam into the timbers. In a panic he tried to rise. His leg would not work. He managed to put weight on the other, but until his injured leg was locked into a straight position it would not bear his weight, the muscle destroyed by that single blow.
He felt his sureness slipping away.
But the goddess was still with him… surely?
Behind him, he heard the furious sounds of fighting, one imperial voice cursing and snarling among several native ones as the engineer and his allies fought to protect Cantex’s back.
Ahead, two more men were coming for him, but a shout from the queen held them back. And then the woman who controlled half this island – the tall, predatory bitch who’d killed his friend – was striding towards him with a powerful gait, a long, strong sword in her hand. As she approached, she ripped off the blue cloak and let it fall.
‘You. You have the gall to invade my home? I will make you and all your kind pay in blood and tears and screams of agony for having the audacity to tumble the walls of Steinvic. They will be rebuilt twice as tall and twice as strong, and I shall snap the bones of your army and use them as sharpened stakes in my ditch.’
‘Big talk,’ was all Cantex found to say. His mind was reeling. He’d been so certain, driven by his vengeance. But suddenly he was feeling very exposed and foolish. He could see something in the woman, in her very aura and the way she moved, that the woman who ruled Steinvic was a warrior to shame all warriors, a spear maiden of northern legend.
On a good day, unmarked, Cantex would no more fear facing her than any other warrior.
But this was not a good day. And Cantex was not unmarked.
He tested his leg, taking a single step forward. Had it not been for the wooden palisade wall, he’d have been flat on his face again. The pain in his leg had been intense, incredible, yet he’d not even noticed it, such had been his rage, focused by the sight of Convocus’ severed head. But now, thinking clearly and truly realising the danger, he recognised what had happened.
The cut had actually gone to the bone, completely severing the muscle. Any slight bend that required use of the leg muscles, and he would be down and helpless. Even standing still, the lifeblood sheeting down his leg, he could hardly manage to maintain his position without leaning on the wall.
‘Oh dear, soldier,’ the queen hissed with mock concern. ‘Are you wounded?’
He snarled, impotent, watching this deadly predator stalking towards him, wielding three feet of gleaming death.
‘You are an officer. I can see it. You wear the same tunic as that one.’ Her free hand gestured loosely back towards the head on the pole. ‘A tunic with a stripe. You must be one of their leaders too. I congratulate you on your bravery and resourcefulness, managing to get into my home so easily. But now you must pay your dues for such arrogance.’
She was almost on him. She turned, seemingly unconcerned that he might do anything, and waved at the warriors she had held back, shouting something in her own tongue. As she turned back to Cantex, he saw with wide eyes the two men, obeying her commands, raise a third sharpened pole and begin to set it in the wall top.
‘No.’
‘Oh yes. Fear is as effective a weapon as any blade. I will terrify your men with what they see. We will hold my home until the other tribes arrive. The first will be here before sunrise, and then we will peel the flesh from the bones of every imperial soldier here and feast upon it.’
Cantex said nothing. There was nothing to say. His eyes slid sideways, to see that the huge fight for the south wall still in progress, still undecided. He could make out little amid the vast swathes of men, both imperial and native, but here and there a flag or a horse identified an officer.
His eyes latched on to a small cluster of flags atop the main southern rampart. He could just about make out a figure beneath them. No real details at a distance nearing half a mile. He knew, though, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it was Bellacon, leading his assault.
He flashed a sad smile in that direction, wishing him luck.
‘It’s your victory now, Lucius,’ he sighed, then turned back to the approaching queen, wincing at the agony in his half-severed leg, leaning heavily on the timbers of the palisade, and gripping his bloodied straight blade.
‘Look at you,’ the queen sneered. ‘Feeble animals. Cattle, all of you. Your empire emasculates and weakens its warriors, because you rely on each other too much. I learned to swing a sword before I learned to shit in a pot.’
Her sword swung up, pointing at Cantex’s face. As she stepped forward, Cantex knocked it aside, and had to adjust desperately so as not to crumple to the floor.
With a sneer, the queen lashed out with a foot, kicking him hard in the leg, which sent waves of appalling pain all through him. Cantex wept as he collapsed to his knees and slowly, agonisingly, pulled himself back up, using the timber wall. He couldn’t beat her. He knew it.
But he wouldn’t die on his knees.
‘Three is a number sacred to my people,’ the queen said in an oddly tutorial tone. ‘We have a triad of chief gods, three powers of world, heavens and spirit, and a threefold death we give to traitors. It seems only fitting that you make my heads over the gate up to three. With yours too, I honour the gods, and they will smile on me and protect me until my tribes come.’
‘Your gods have fled, Queen of the Albantes,’ Cantex said quietly.
He was feeling weak, the blood draining from his leg now enough to bring him close to unconsciousness.
‘My friend will finish you. See how even now your city falls to him?’
The queen’s answer came with a swish of cleaving steel and rippling muscle. Cantex was still blinking in surprise even when he realised he was looking up at his own headless body starting to fold and collapse. Oddly, without a maimed and ruined body, he seemed to feel a complete absence of pain.
Darkness was closing around his vision, though, as the queen picked up his head and looked deep into his eyes with her own piercing orbs. He remembered reading how decapitated criminals seemed to be aware for precious moments after their death.
She was carrying him now, along the parapet towards…
The stake!
Gods, but he hoped the darkness would close quickly…
Chapter 31
Bellacon was exultant. His blood sang as he climbed the last three paces to stand on the earthen bank with the shattered stone parapet. The war machines had fallen silent. The catapults had ended their barrage some time ago when the attack began in earnest, though the forward-thinking artillery captains had taken it upon themselves to continue their bolt thrower attack in spite of their orders to desist.
Instead, they had shifted their focus, launching their bolts to the flanks, far from the imperial forces, at maximum range, yet still striking the occasional defender on the wall tops away from the breach. Some of the better artillerists had even taken to launching their bolts in a massive arc at the limit of their tension, bringing the missiles down inside Steinvic, away from the combat, with unseen results.
But the current credit had to go to the legions, who had shown their teeth to the enemy and not been found wanting. In the face of terrible obstacles and fierce defence, the three legions had worked as one and swarmed forward, navigating the ditch with difficulty, clambering across the rubble of the broken walls and the filler they had brought forward.
They had mounted the banks, losing ten men with every heartbeat, yet roaring with bravery and vim as they gained the heights and struggled with desperate defenders.
Bellacon had been forced to leave his horse on the far side of the ditch, as the beast simply could not safely navigate the ditch the way a human could, especially not in the press of men. And so he had surged forward in the second wave, behind the vanguard, sword out, teeth bared and with his standard bearers, signal musician and adjutant struggling to keep up amid the mob of yelling soldiers.
Formation was a forgotten thing now. In a pitched battle in the open, format
ion often won the day. Clambering across obstacles, climbing ramparts and fighting off howling natives all the way, while under attack by random missiles, however, formation was simply impossible to maintain.
Despite his orders that every officer draw his sword and join in the fray, Bellacon had yet to bloody his blade. On the face of it, it looked as though the delay caused by dismounting and seeing his horse safe with a groom before he crossed the ditch had put him far enough back from the frontlines that he had failed to encounter a single warrior during his assault.
In his soul, Bellacon held the suspicion that his officers and men were all conniving somehow to keep him from danger at the front. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to worry about such things. They had broken the south wall. And now he could see why.
Cantex’s plan had worked like a dream. The bulk of the warriors of Steinvic had been positioned in the fields behind the south wall, waiting to repulse the coming onslaught of imperial troops. The trampled crops, the millions of shuffling boot prints and the churned earth between the myriad narrow irrigation channels told of a huge army waiting impatiently.
The legions had surged forward and begun their assault. And just as the natives waited tensely, listening to their fellows on the wall top jeering at the coming force, they heard that the west wall had fallen and the prince’s army was inside Steinvic. Panic had set in and at least half the men waiting here had run off to help repulse the prince’s rebel army. The remaining men had been ordered onto the south ramparts as the legions crossed the ditch, but their numbers, divided thusly, simply were not enough against the steel and discipline of the legions.
From his vantage point, Bellacon could just see across the town a similar huge fracas at the west rampart, though it was far too distant and largely obscured by the settlement to tell much other than that there was mass fighting going on.
Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Page 34