The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  The general seemed in mellow humour, for he had nodded to Stern and said, ‘Your emperor values your service, soldier.’

  And Stern had replied, ‘Thank you, lord,’ as if he conversed with generals every day.

  Now, standing on the wall in the watery light, he watched and wondered.

  ‘You still worrying about it?’ Quora asked, looking up at him, for he was a good head taller.

  Stern shrugged. ‘It makes no sense,’ he argued. The other soldiers of the platoon sighed. They had heard it before. ‘We were told when we were deployed here that Boaz was our direct commander, after Caranus was killed.’ Caranus had been commander of the Pigstickers, a company of the Twenty-fifth infantry, largely destroyed in the battle at Salaba in the summer. Stern and his five had survived Salaba, when the Maritime Army of the West had been surprised and slaughtered by the Blues, and had returned to the City, where they found themselves rewarded with wall-walking duties until they could be reassigned to another infantry regiment. They had walked this easternmost section of the Adamantine Wall, between the Isingen Tower and the Tower of Truth, for more than six weeks now. Stern was bored beyond reason and he hated the stones of the wall with every fibre of his being. The others seemed to find the lack of excitement restful.

  ‘So if your commander gives you an order you take it,’ he went on, ‘and if your commander orders you to bar the gate you do it. But if he comes back the next day and orders you to open it again then you do that. What general gives an order he can’t countermand?’ he said, coming to the nub of his disquiet.

  ‘Let’s worry about it if it comes to that,’ said the veteran Grey Gus, not for the first time.

  And what if, Stern thought to himself – though he did not say it for it sounded like treason – both Marcellus and the emperor were killed in whatever emergency this is? What then? Do the Great Gates stay closed for ever, with Stern and his warriors forever defending them to the death against the City’s own soldiers?

  ‘It makes no sense,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘It’s not our place to question,’ his brother Benet sniffed. ‘We’re the fighting Pigstickers, finest soldiers in the City. We follow our orders and we follow them to the death.’ Benet had never been troubled by too many thoughts.

  They heard the sound of marching feet and Stern walked over to the inner edge of the wall and looked down.

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Benet, peering at a group of soldiers emerging from the rain. ‘Can you see?’

  Stern glanced at him. His brother’s eyesight had been getting worse since the head wound a year before. Now Benet could scarcely recognize his own brother’s face, far less the infantrymen below.

  ‘Shovelheads,’ he answered shortly.

  ‘Muck-shovellers,’ sneered his brother. He spat in their general direction. There was bitter rivalry between the Pigstickers and the Shovelheads, whose barracks lay next to theirs in the Street of Bright Dancers and who were manning the next section of wall between the Isingen Tower and the Adamantine Gate.

  Benet saw his brother was still frowning. ‘Boaz ordered us,’ he said. ‘He’s our general. If he orders us to open the gates again, we have to. He’s our general.’ There was no contradiction there to Benet. ‘And he can do us a lot of good. He said he will be grateful.’

  ‘He said the emperor will be grateful. And what if he’s dead?’

  ‘Who, the emperor?’

  ‘No, you moron. Boaz. What if he’s killed? What if they’re all killed? Do we just stand here holding the gates until we die?’

  Benet screwed up his face in a parody of thought. ‘Hold the gates. Hold them to the death,’ he said eventually, looking round at his fellows, who nodded, glad to agree with anything which might end this conversation. Benet looked down at the marching soldiers and happily made an obscene gesture at their backs.

  Stern slumped down on the stones of the battlements. His back ached and he was grateful to be off his feet for a moment. He was tired and soaked to the skin and his feet hurt. He wondered when he had last had dry boots. He wished with all his heart it was a normal day like any other. They had been on duty all night and by now he should be back in the barracks, asleep with a full stomach of corn porridge. But their turn had been doubled and they faced another day standing in the sleet and rain. His troop stood looking at him. Despite their confident words, they knew him well enough to be worried because he was worried.

  ‘What’s that?’ sharp-eyed Quora asked, pushing back her helm and squinting into the distance. Stern got wearily to his feet again.

  ‘What?’

  She was pointing out beyond the wall, towards what seemed to be a thickening of the mist. Stern peered, yet could make no sense of it. He caught a distant rumbling, like the muffled cavalry charge of a thousand horses. His whole troop was now squinting in that direction. All any of them could see was sleet and mist, but the sound was getting louder.

  A fresh worm of anxiety moved in Stern’s belly. ‘Into the tower!’ he yelled, without knowing why. The other soldiers looked at him, surprised, but started moving towards the door in the Isingen Tower, fifty paces away.

  ‘Lively!’ he bellowed at them and they broke into a trot, Benet straggling at the rear. Stern took another look at the darkness to the south and, fear flooding his body, ran after them. They dived into the narrow doorway, one at a time, the roaring noise quickening their boots.

  Stern paused fractionally, then with horror saw a grey wall of water, higher than the Adamantine Wall itself, looming over him out of the mist. In the last heartbeat before it struck he stepped into the tower, dragging the sturdy door shut behind him.

  The wall of water hit home like a battering-ram of the gods. The noise, reverberating through the hollow stone tower, was deafening. As the soldiers crouched in the dark on the inner steps they felt the shock like a blow to their bodies, rattling their teeth and jolting them to the core. Stones showered down on their helms and backs and they heard the grate and creak of tortured timbers and screams of fear and pain from comrades beneath them.

  The Isingen Tower, which had stood for eight hundred years, held for a few more heartbeats before the wooden roof caved in, letting in daylight and the flood of water. With an ear-shattering roar part of the tower collapsed. An avalanche of stone and timber crashed down, scouring away the lower stairs, leaving Stern and his comrades marooned near the top. The six soldiers clung to one another on the ruined stairway, sure that at any moment they would be swept off by the raging waters or by flying stonework. Stern’s eyes were squeezed shut. He was holding on to Benet and he could feel someone else’s arm round his shoulder. He prayed for it to end.

  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the noise slowly receded and there was an eerie stillness, the only sounds those of dripping water and the muffled cries of terrified and injured soldiers buried in the rubble.

  Stern lifted his head and looked around. The section of steps where they had found refuge had miraculously stayed intact. The southern side of the tower had disappeared completely, along with the lower steps. Stern was staring through falling rain and rising dust straight towards the mountains.

  Cautiously, afraid their refuge would give way under him, he stood. Aware that his legs were like wet string, he limped down the remaining steps to where they ended halfway up the tall tower. Below him was just a pile of rubble, still shifting as it settled and as the water drained away. Roof timbers were thrown about in the debris like a child’s fighting sticks.

  ‘We can climb down here,’ he said, his voice ringing hollowly in his ears. ‘There will be injured.’ Anyone who was on the floor of the tower when it fell would be dead, he thought, but they were comrades so they must search for them anyway. He thought he could hear far-off screams of fear and panic as the flood rolled on over the City. They would do what they could to aid the injured, but they must be ready to fight, for the next people they saw might well be Blues, now the City lay wide open to the enemy.

&n
bsp; ‘This ale stinks!’

  The fat man slammed down his tankard, slopping dark liquid across the rough counter. ‘It’s dog-piss,’ he added, glaring at the innkeeper of the Three Fools tavern who watched him bleakly, mopping up the ale with a grimy rag.

  Rubin couldn’t but agree. But it had never been his intention to drink the stuff. One sniff was enough. He sat silently in his corner of the inn, knit cap pulled down over his forehead, watching the fat man, whose name was Drusus. He had been doing this for several days and had come to the conclusion that he was wasting his time. Drusus was just a fat oaf who boasted of friends inside the palace and knowledge of the private thoughts of the generals and commanders. He was a former dungeon guard, dismissed for drunkenness, and he clearly had friends somewhere, for it was impossible to stay that stout on the usual City ration of cornbread and dried peas and the odd wrinkled apple. And he had connections in the palace, for certain, because he had spoken unwisely in days past of the mutiny of the Leopards. It would have been simple enough to have him killed in a dark alley, but Marcellus, when he heard of it, gave Rubin the task of following the man to see who these connections were.

  It had been easy, so easy that Rubin suspected Marcellus had given him the job to keep him busy in the empty days since his return from the mountains. He didn’t mind. But it was years since he had spent any time in the City and he was troubled by the changes. Supplies were badly stretched. There was little meat to be had, and fish only from time to time. Crops were grown in the farmlands to the north-east, but the recent steady rain had ruined many of them, and clearly there were no hops. Rubin had no idea what the ale on the table before him was made of and he didn’t want to think about it.

  The streets of the City were populated largely by the old and the very young: the old who had forgotten what their lives were for, and the young who would probably never learn. All men and women of fighting age were either in the army or dead. There were few dogs or cats now skulking in the alleys and twittens, and only the rats seemed to flourish. And you rarely saw a fat man anywhere.

  So Rubin kept following Drusus out of curiosity. The man lived in Amphitheatre, a district in the south of the City, in a house which was neither mansion nor hovel. It was small, but built sturdily of stone with a slate roof, and Drusus shared it with his elderly aunt and a servant, a female child who was no more than a slave.

  Each day Drusus would leave his house at the crack of mid-morning and head to the Shining Stars Inn, a good walk away, where he would sit and drink and eat and talk to his fellow barflies. There Rubin would find him. Later the man would take a meandering course home via several other taverns and eating houses, becoming more belligerent and dislikeable as the hours passed.

  Rubin’s height and red hair made it hard for him to follow anyone covertly, but Drusus never seemed to notice him dogging his heels or frequenting the same inns as him day after day. The man was clearly a fool and Rubin found it hard to believe he posed any threat to the palace or the emperor.

  Today was the Day of Summoning, when people all over the City lit candles at dusk to greet the gods home from their long voyage round the sun. Rubin was told that in past times the whole population turned out to celebrate, and the day was spent in feasting and worship. There would be little feasting that day.

  ‘No one can drink this slop!’ the fool said again, having downed half of it.

  ‘Clear off then!’ the innkeeper cried, waving the wet rag at him.

  Drusus lumbered to his feet, knocking over the tankard, and made a grab for the innkeeper, who stepped nimbly away and dragged a stout cudgel from under the counter.

  ‘Clear off!’ the man shouted again and Rubin saw his gaze rolling to appeal to two soldiers watching from a table at the far side of the inn.

  ‘Can’t sell this piss!’ Drusus argued, pointing a stubby finger at him. He drew himself up like a cockerel about to crow. ‘The palace will hear of this!’ he threatened. ‘I’ve got friends!’

  ‘Go talk to your friends,’ the innkeeper said with contempt. ‘You’ll sup no more ale in here.’

  The two soldiers pushed back their chairs and came ambling over. They’d been in the tavern for some time and had drunk a good deal and their relaxed demeanour belied a need to give someone a good kicking. They laid hands on fat Drusus and dragged him outside, protesting and flailing. Rubin stood and, nodding amiably to the innkeeper, strolled after them out into the rain-drenched street.

  By the time he got there Drusus was already lying in a muddy puddle trying to curl up in a ball as the two soldiers – infantrymen of the Forty-second Celestine, Rubin noted – laid into him with their boots. The sounds were of sturdy leather hitting solid flesh, and muffled groans from their victim. After a while the soldiers got bored with kicking him and wandered back into the inn, no doubt anticipating a free drink.

  Rubin decided to change tack. He crouched down beside Drusus, who was moaning and crying.

  ‘Can I help you, good sir?’ he asked solicitously. ‘I saw the whole thing. The soldiers attacked you for no reason. Are you injured?’

  Drusus rolled over and vomited ale on to the wet earth. He groaned and sat up, rain sluicing the mud off his pudgy face.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Rubin said again. He got Drusus to his knees, then his feet. The fat man was clutching his ribs and Rubin suspected one or more must be broken. He found it hard to summon much sympathy, but the man didn’t deserve the punishment he’d suffered for criticizing the inn’s disgusting ale. Not for the first time, the thought came that the City’s soldiery were out of control.

  ‘Where do you live?’ he asked, setting off south towards the man’s home. Drusus pointed vaguely in the direction they were going. Rubin was too tall to support him properly but he held the man’s fat upper arm and tried to prop him up as best he could.

  He was still feeling drained by his long ride from the north, though many days had now passed, and as the pair struggled towards Amphitheatre he thought about Valla again and wondered where she was. He had begged her to go with him to meet Marcellus – to ensure the First Lord heard of her heroism – but after their audience, in which Valla had remained stubbornly silent, she had disappeared, telling him she wanted to look for a friend. He had not seen her since and he wondered what would become of her, if anyone would employ a one-armed warrior and, if not, how she would survive.

  By the time they came within sight of Drusus’ house the man was recovering his ability to speak. He was mumbling about the two soldiers, the inn, its ale and the innkeeper, spewing curses and venom on them all. Rubin wondered why he was bothering to help the drunkard. He had killed more likeable men.

  Then they straggled to a halt, looking around them. A dull rumbling could be heard in the distance, like thunder on a warm afternoon, and the earth under their feet seemed to vibrate. Rubin could feel it in his teeth. A trickle of dread ran through him.

  They were in the district which lay between the old Sarantine Wall and the new walls. The Sarantine was one of the most ancient in the City but had become redundant when the Adamantine Wall – higher, thicker, stronger – was built four leagues to the south. Such faith was placed in the new wall that the Sarantine’s gates had been allowed to rot.

  Rubin turned around, trying to work out where the ominous sound was coming from. Drusus stood with an expression of dumb incomprehension on his fat face.

  The roaring became louder and the very air seemed to quiver. There were shouts and screams. ‘Earthquake!’ Drusus cried. Children and old people were hurrying out into the street from their homes, the able-bodied supporting the infirm. They looked around wide-eyed, wondering at the din. It wasn’t an earthquake, Rubin was sure. It was something worse. He started to move back the way they had come, his eyes fixed on the Adamantine Wall.

  ‘Come away!’ he urged Drusus, but the fat man ignored him. Rubin grabbed hold of his sleeve and started to drag him away.

  Then there was a booming sound, like the crash of the wav
es at the base of the Salient, but a thousand times louder. Rubin was stunned into stillness. He was looking straight at the Adamantine Wall, now shockingly diminished by a grey wall of water looming above. For a moment the impossible wave seemed to hang over the tiny figures patrolling the battlements, then they disappeared as if snatched away by the gods. A stretch of the great wall exploded inwards as if pulverized by a monstrous battering-ram.

  ‘Run!’ Rubin shouted. And, letting go of the fat man, he ran for his life.

  At the Isingen Tower water was still pouring from the ruined roof, mixed with the relentless rain, and Stern and his troop were coughing and choking as they climbed down the pile of timber and stone. Helping each other, they slowly made their way to the base of the tower, fearful that the remaining walls would topple and crush them. It took a long time, testing each bootstep as the rubble shifted, but with cries of relief they emerged from the shadow of the tower, bruised and clothed with grey dust and mud, but miraculously unharmed.

  Stern stared through the rain at what once had been an impregnable wall, an invulnerable tower. Where did all the water come from? He had no idea. He heard the clop of horses’ hooves and turned, thinking cavalry had come to rescue the trapped and injured.

  Out of the rain stepped a troop of twenty or more horsemen, heavy cavalry on armoured mounts. The horses were puffing and blowing as if from a fast ride. Steam rose from their coats and their leather harness creaked and jingled as they circled around Stern and his comrades. Then lances were lowered and the City soldiers found themselves in the centre of a ring of sharp lance-points. Stern squinted up at the horsemen. He did not recognize their uniforms, and the helms were closed, leaving them faceless and sinister. But the pennants drooping wetly from the levelled lances were green and yellow, the colours of Petrus, and he realized their good fortune at surviving the fall of the tower had ended.

  Slowly he and the others raised their hands. ‘We surrender,’ he said.