The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  ‘The camp-followers will stay here with them,’ Hayden told her stiffly. ‘With entry to the City within their grasp the enemy will waste no more soldiers chasing us. Those who are on the road to recovery will come with us. This is why we need to move soon. Those who aren’t,’ he looked down at Benet, ‘we leave here. I’m sorry.’

  Stern knew Benet would be dead before nightfall. Even so, the prospect of leaving him, dead or alive, was distressing. A decent burning in the company of other warriors was the best a soldier could expect, but that seldom happened. Sometimes they were put in shallow graves but Hayden’s soldiers did not have a shovel between them and the rolling land on which they camped was rock-hard. More often a dead warrior received the solace of neither grave nor fire, but was abandoned to fill the bellies of animals and birds.

  ‘The mouse fever—’ Bruenna began.

  Stern was watching Hayden’s face and he saw tension snap into place around his eyes. The general disliked dealing with Bruenna, who seemed to offer nothing but complaint, but her women trusted her and they had been vital in nursing the sick. Not only that, Hayden detested the name ‘mouse fever’. The soldiers had started seeing black mice scampering through the camp a few days before the sickness struck. They held the mice responsible for they feared them. The general, on the other hand, believed the plague was caused by a miasma from the damp ground and he insisted on breaking camp regularly to outpace it. Hayden despised superstition and an argument with the men over the demonic status of mice was the only time Stern had seen him lose his temper.

  ‘This is not a subject for discussion, woman,’ the general told Bruenna, as he often did. ‘It is a military decision. Every move we make must be with a military purpose. We will break camp—’ Stern watched him briefly fumble for his timepiece before remembering once again that it was broken, ‘at dusk.’

  He walked away and Stern knelt, and found Benet had died while they were talking. As he closed his brother’s eyes he felt only relief.

  Casmir lay on his belly at the lip of a slight incline a hundred paces from the rear of the enemy army. A tall cairn beside him, the Cairn of Ashes, marked the site of the last attack on the Great North Gate more than thirty years before. The assassin’s dead eye-socket itched from the dust and he kept raising his patch to scratch at it. From his right Stern muttered to him, ‘Be still.’

  Casmir had returned to Hayden’s army despite his best intention. When he reached the Araby Gate, north of the Paradise Gate, he had handed the general’s message to the guards. He was left to stew in a locked room until the guards’ leader came in. He was a seasoned soldier, young but experienced, and he recognized a veteran when he saw one. He listened to Casmir’s story of the lone army battling for the City from the enemy’s rear and he vowed the vital message would reach the empress. He told Casmir frankly, ‘I wish I could come with you, friend. The City is under siege yet we are doing nothing to help.’

  ‘You’ll get your chance,’ Casmir said, seeing the lust for battle in the young man’s eyes. He had felt it himself once.

  Then he was back on his horse and heading out of the City, going north again. He had decided he would not desert Shivers and his comrades. He had been abandoned himself, twenty years before when his fellows had left him for dead after the skirmish at Plakos, and he knew how it felt. The torment he suffered then had left him reluctant to trust comrades again. But he was an honourable man, though others were not. He would add his sword to Hayden’s ragtag army, for he knew a single blade often made the difference between victory and defeat. He was fairly young, he mused, and his life of wealth and ease could wait a little longer, until after this emergency was over.

  Now they were lying as close as they dared to the enemy’s baggage train, separated from the tattooed horde by a stretch of earth and a few wagons. All the foreign army’s attention was on the Great North Gate. It had been battered daily by cannon balls – although in the last days the pace of the cannonade had diminished – and it was still standing only because it had been shored up behind with piles of rock and stones from demolished buildings. Since the general’s message had got through there was occasional communication between Hayden and the White Palace, and the general had been told a killing field, a hundred paces deep, had been readied inside the gate. It was inevitable the Great North Gate would fall. But when the enemy broke through they would have to climb over the ruins then cross cleared ground through a blizzard of arrows and crossbow bolts to reach a stretch of newly built defences on which the City soldiers – the Second Adamantine, veterans all – waited with bright swords. Hayden’s fighters were desperate to join that battle.

  And now everyone – enemy, defenders and Hayden’s company – was waiting for the gate to fall.

  It was a perilous place to be, so close to the enemy. A pall of acrid smoke lay over them from the pyres which burned day and night. The cries and groans of wounded men drifted from a nearby casualty station – one of their first targets once they were on the move. Killing the wounded would do nothing militarily but it would anger the enemy warriors – or so they hoped, for they still knew little about them, though they had walked for more than thirty days and nights in their shadow.

  Casmir turned to Shivers who was lying at his other side and asked, ‘All right?’

  Shivers nodded. He had sickened with mouse fever and for three days had been close to death. Now he was on his feet again, weakened but anxious not to stay back with the women and the dying. His mangled face looked worse than ever but Casmir hardly noticed it any more. He still wore Shivers’ jacket and his friend wore a heavy wool coat, scavenged from the enemy, with a chain mail vest beneath. Casmir had never had a friend before, and it was a strange experience to be concerned with another’s wellbeing.

  They were eager to get the battle under way and impatient whispering began. Warriors fingered the edges of their shields, which lay beside them, and the hilts of their swords, sheathed at Hayden’s order. The general wanted no clattering metal to betray them. Then the word came down the line, ‘Be still. Be quiet,’ and they all settled.

  Only sixty-seven warriors, Casmir thought, to face many thousands. Most would be slain, but Casmir had no intention of being there when that happened. He would kill and kill as they moved forward, but the moment they began to fall back he planned to turn and run for his life. His mouth was dry, his hands slick with sweat. He laid his long dagger on the earth and wiped his hands on his flanks, then grasped the blade again. The wall could fall any time . . .

  Then it happened, suddenly, quietly. The Great North Gate, distant to Casmir’s eye, simply crumpled. It seemed strong, unconquerable, standing proud as it always had, then the top half vanished in a silent explosion of dust. The enemy hordes roared their triumph, stamping their feet, clashing swords on shields, the clamour deafening. The drums rolled, then their entire army moved forward, running at the front, marching at the rear. The rumble they created was like night thunder.

  Casmir, waiting, looked impatiently to his right where the order to advance would come from. Time crawled by. He looked ahead again. He could not see that far with his one eye, but he imagined the enemy soldiers climbing over the gate’s ruins unhindered. Then, although he had heard no order, his comrades began stumbling to their feet, clambering over the crest of earth, running towards the vast, dark bulk of the enemy army. Casmir snatched up his shield and ran with them, Shivers half a pace behind. It was hard to see for all the dust and smoke, hard to breathe. Then shapes loomed ahead and he saw they had reached the baggage wagons. But there were no guards to detain them and they swept through. Now it was becoming a foot-race. Casmir saw Stern sprinting ahead and he redoubled his efforts to keep up. Their prize was the first enemy death.

  When a wall of unarmoured backs appeared out of the murk the City soldiers were on them with shouts of triumph. Casmir hacked at one neck, then another, then a third. For a few long heartbeats he felt invincible. Then enemy warriors were turning swiftly, swinging thei
r shields, disordered briefly by the stealthy attack. One great oaf lunged at him with a broadsword and Casmir neatly skewered him between his belly plates. The man fell howling to all fours and Casmir slashed him across the spine to finish him.

  The enemy were enraged by the attack. They were forced to turn and defend their rear when all they wanted was to charge the broken gate. They were ferocious but undisciplined. One group of a dozen or more attacked haphazardly and found themselves isolated, in a trap of their own making, and were slaughtered by Hayden’s fighters. Commands were bellowed by enemy leaders and some order restored.

  Casmir saw Stern go down unhelmed, knocked sideways by a glancing blow from a mace. Brel, the Petrassi captain, noticed too, and he and Casmir stood over their comrade until Stern managed to get to all fours and crawl away. Brel was a swordmaster, like Casmir, but this was no place for their superior skills. They cut and hacked with sword and knife, gouging and punching and head-butting where they could, forcing the enemy back, forcing their generals to commit more men to defend their rear.

  Casmir parried a thrust from a short sword. He swept a two-handed blow to a man’s unprotected head which caved in his skull. Another ran forward, helmed and clad in leather armour. Casmir’s blade flashed out. The enemy parried, then ducked beneath a swing to stab at Casmir’s groin. Casmir leaped sideways, his weapon swinging downward in a vicious arc. The man blocked the blow but staggered, slashing wildly. Casmir spun on his heel to hammer his elbow into his face. The man fell to one knee then screamed as a blade was thrust deep into his side by Hayden Weaver. Casmir grinned at the general and Hayden nodded, dragging his sword out.

  As the battle went on Casmir was wounded, cut in several places, his blood flowing freely, yet still he stood strong, Shivers on his left, Hayden on his right. But their numbers were fast dwindling.

  Then came a welcome reprieve. The defenders on the walls must have realized there was a battle going on outside and crossbowmen were brought up. The first Casmir knew of it was when the man he was fighting, a soldier with tattoos so thick and black he looked burned, suddenly collapsed, felled by a crossbow bolt through the back of his skull. Casmir looked up at the battlements then retreated quickly, yelling to the others to do the same, making a clear division between the enemy and themselves. Ten of the tattooed warriors, then twenty, fell to the black-feathered bolts. They didn’t know which way to turn. Hayden’s force attacked them again, trusting the accuracy of the bowmen. Some of the enemy infantrymen, under attack from both sides, started retreating in disorder, heading east. Six were cut off by Hayden’s soldiers and killed.

  Casmir took the chance of a lull in the fighting to suck in some deep breaths, looking around. Stern was back in the battle, his head roughly bandaged. Hayden was standing on a corpse’s back, surrounded by the dead and dying, gauging the battle. The general shouted to them to retreat. Some, their blood up, argued angrily. But Casmir knew Hayden was right. They’d forced the enemy leaders to rethink and they would attack in force next, a force big enough to destroy them.

  Brel, limping heavily, repeated the order to retreat and Shivers and Casmir went with him, pushing and dragging some of their friends who were reluctant to leave. They ran and stumbled, heading back towards the crest of land they’d left at dawn. But it was too late.

  From the south, detaching itself from the body of the enemy army, came a company of light infantry, more than two hundred men armed with long spears and tall shields. These were not the tattooed horde, Casmir could tell. They were disciplined, elite warriors, no doubt intent on finishing them off for good.

  Hayden shouted to his remaining warriors to form a defensive circle protecting the injured. Their position was hopeless, but he had always known it would come to this. They were too far from the walls for the bowmen to help them now. Looking about him he saw they were back at the tall cairn where they had started the day. Now, though, there were scarcely twenty of his soldiers still on their feet, and their opponents looked fresh, well armed and intent on revenge. A dark shadow fell over him and he looked up. Storm clouds were massing overhead.

  Blood ran from a head-wound and he could feel it trickling down his neck. His back was on fire and when he moved he could feel a broken sword-tip lodged beneath his shoulder-blade, gouging into muscle and flesh. It made raising his shield impossible and Hayden had long since abandoned it, relying on sword and long dagger.

  A flicker of lightning flashed to his right, closely followed by a roll of thunder. Then the rain came down in torrents. Lightning overhead lit up the immense enemy army and the wall teeming with attackers. And, nearly on top of them now, the infantry sent to wipe out Hayden and his survivors. He could see the hatred in their eyes, the blood on their teeth. He thought of his Anna for the last time. All pain faded away.

  A spear lunged towards him. Blocking it with his sword he dragged a back-handed cut that sheared through leather and through the flesh beneath. He parried another thrust and hammered his sword into the man’s face. A blade sliced through Hayden’s thigh but he scarcely felt it.

  A tall warrior ran at him using all the weight of his heavily muscled shoulder and length of his arm to hurl a spear at Hayden. With no shield, the general desperately threw himself to one side. The spear caught him on the edge of his breastplate and veered off, but the weight of the blow spun him round and he fell to his knees. He pushed himself to his feet but another man ran at him. Desperately he turned aside the thrusting spear with his mailed gauntlet then punched the man in the jaw. The enemy warrior paused, befuddled, then Stern appeared out of the rain and hacked at his neck, severing the great blood vessels in a fountain of gore.

  They could not stand for long. It was slaughter. His heartbeat seemed to slow and Hayden, cruelly, had plenty of time to watch as the enemy overwhelmed them. He saw Casmir, badly injured, go to Shivers’ aid as he fought off an attack by three men. Both of them went down. He saw Stern brought to his knees by a kick in the stomach. Before he could move to help his lieutenant a spearman drove his weapon deep into Stern’s back.

  Hayden stood, chest heaving, blood and rain sluicing off him. It had been a gallant effort. His little band of survivors had been scarcely more than a fleabite to the enemy army but they had done their valiant best, and had made some restitution for their terrible losses at the Vorago. They had fought to the last man – no warrior could ask more. Looking round again, he realized he was that last man.

  He saw the spear coming towards him but, weakened by blood-loss, he knew there was little he could do about it. As the point drove into his chest he grabbed the wielder’s arm and slashed his knife towards the man’s neck. He never saw if the blade landed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE NIGHTHAWKS RODE south beneath the pouring rain. They kept the City walls in distant sight to their right, alert for enemy attack, but the soft eastern plain remained quiet. To their left was the Grandon Forest, a gloomy, secret place of dark trees closely ranked. They saw deer watching them from its shadows, but Darius refused his troopers’ petition to hunt them. We are riding to battle. It is for lesser men to bring food, he told them.

  After a long night in the saddle Rubin was relieved to see the great bulk of the south-east bastion, the Raven Tower, rising in their path by mid-morning. The square tower marked the transition from the eastern wall to that of the south, and was the tallest structure for many leagues around. It was their destination, the headquarters of the southern defence.

  Darius was familiar to soldiers throughout the City, and when they saw him the guards raced to open the Raven Gate and admit the Nighthawks. Their mounts barely slowed, clattering across cobbles, through the cool of the tunnel, and out into the odorous tumult of the City. There the troopers reined in and Rubin slid off his mount, sinews screaming. He prayed to the gods that he might never have to sit on a horse again.

  Darius ran up the steps of the tower and Rubin followed more slowly. But when the commander stopped at a lower floor and disappeared into
darkness Rubin, lured by the tower’s heights, carried on climbing the spiral steps. By the time he reached the top he was breathless. On the wind-blown battlements were four guards, one in each corner of the immense wooden floor, staring outward, unmoving. It was silent up there, apart from the buffeting of the easterly wind in Rubin’s ear. He stepped over to the western side of the tower and looked down. He gripped the stones, astonished by what he saw.

  He knew from his old guard Gallan that there had been a frantic attempt to reinforce the ruins of the Adamantine Wall and to dig a defensive ditch, but he had thought it hopeless. A ditch? A bank of earth? How could they keep out the enemy horde? But now he could see what the City could achieve when the need was dire.

  A stump of the wall, from the Raven Tower westward, still stood, but it ended abruptly after one hundred paces or so. Beyond, into the far distance, he could see only jumbled stone with just the odd tower still standing. In front of the ruins an enormous ditch had been excavated, twenty or more paces wide. It was impossible to judge how deep it was for this end of it was half flooded. From the muddy waters bristled the tops of thousands of sharpened stakes. Behind the moat a gigantic earthwork, half the height of the Raven Tower, had been thrown up over the ruins of the Adamantine Wall. Thousands of workers, mostly women and children it seemed, were swarming over the giant fortification like beetles, teams shifting stones from the broken wall and convoys of ox-wagons bringing supplies of gravel and earth. He could hear bellowing oxen, the cries of the labourers and the rattle of spades on gravel but they seemed distant, whipped away by the stiff breeze which fluttered the pennants on the tower.

  The new defence looked impossible to cross. In his mind’s eye Rubin saw enemy troops throw flimsy bridges across the ditch, scramble over them, the defenders hurling down rocks, loosing arrows, the attackers falling, impaled on the stakes – it was a satisfying image.