The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  The rain had stopped at last and weak sunlight touched his face. Rubin turned slowly northward, his eye passing over the City’s southernmost districts of Barenna and Burman South, and beyond them the Shield of Freedom. Clouds brooded above the mountain; it was still raining there. His gaze alighted on the City’s east wall leading northward to the Paradise Gate, too far away to discern. Beyond it the wall continued, leading ever north. A strong horse in its prime would take a good day, Rubin knew, to gallop from where he was in the south to the furthest northern point, the Great North Gate. From this height, and in sunlight, it was hard to believe a vast army was besieging the City. Except it wasn’t a siege. Even an army ten times the size could not hope to attack the whole of the City’s hundreds of leagues of wall. No, they had picked the vulnerable points, two of the Great Gates and here, this woeful breach.

  Hearing voices approaching, Rubin turned to see Darius and two other soldiers climb into sight on to the tower’s wooden roof. One was tall and thin, not old, wearing eyeglasses. The other was—Rubin’s words of greeting caught in his throat.

  Marcellus!

  ‘Lord!’ Rubin ran over to him and fell to his knees. He looked up, scarcely believing. Marcellus was full-bearded now and wore cavalry leathers like a common trooper. The beard made him look older but as always he diminished any man near him with the force of his presence.

  ‘Well, young Rubin,’ his lord said warmly. ‘You do turn up in the oddest of places.’ He smiled.

  Rubin was beyond words, but he could have said the same. He had always hoped against hope that he would see Marcellus again, but he had never expected to meet him here, in the heart of Archange’s defences.

  His lord clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Get up, you fool,’ he whispered. Close up, Rubin thought the intervening year had been hard on him. His eyes were pouchy, his face thinner, more lined.

  Rubin scrambled to his feet and glanced between Marcellus and Darius, perplexed. Elija had told him the Nighthawks had fought for the emperor on the Day of Summoning. Marcellus and Darius should be enemies yet Darius was smiling.

  As if hearing his thoughts, Marcellus explained, ‘I have been to the Serafia and spoken to Archange. I have agreed to join my troops with hers against this common enemy.’

  Marcellus turned to the man in eyeglasses. ‘You have performed miracles here, Vares,’ he said, indicating the work below. ‘But we are still woefully short of defenders. They are sending thirty to forty thousand against us in the south, my intelligence tells me.’ He started pacing up and down the wooden floor, his prodigious energy barely contained.

  ‘We have sixteen thousand men at arms,’ said Langham Vares, general of the Twenty-second, following Marcellus with his eyes, ‘including your two thousand, plus a militia of more than ten thousand. We have two hundred bowmen. But the Nighthawks are our only cavalry.’

  ‘These militia you speak of – you mean the people labouring on the defences?’ Marcellus asked, pausing at the west side of the tower, looking down. ‘Women and children, and old men?’

  Vares sighed, taking off his eyeglasses and cleaning them on his sleeve. He looked weary and discouraged. ‘The time will come when they will be fighting for their lives, lord.’

  ‘Or running for their lives,’ Marcellus muttered. ‘The enemy forces are marching hard from the north. We can expect them here by dawn. But we have another problem, and a grave one.’

  ‘Lord?’

  Marcellus lowered his voice so the sentries on the tower could not hear. ‘Plague has broken out among the defenders at both the Great North Gate and the Paradise Gate.’ Vares groaned, dismayed. ‘We must assume it has been brought by the enemy army,’ Marcellus went on. ‘It can be controlled to some degree while there is a wall between attackers and defenders. But here there will be hand-to-hand combat.’ He said no more.

  ‘But if the plague is rife among the enemy they will be weakened,’ Vares offered, clutching at faint hope. ‘Perhaps they will not get this far south—’

  ‘If they were to lose one in three to the plague we would still be badly outnumbered,’ Marcellus cut in impatiently. ‘And they have shown no sign of it. Their leader is a man called Hammarskjald. I know him well from the past. He is a ruthless enemy and I suspect his hand behind this infection.’

  ‘Will you tell the defenders about the plague, lord?’ asked Rubin.

  Marcellus turned to him. ‘Why would I?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘It might make our people fight more ferociously to stop them entering the City, or . . .’ Rubin trailed off as he saw where his argument was going.

  ‘It might make them flee in fear,’ Marcellus finished. ‘What do you think?’

  Rubin had never suffered from a lack of confidence but he felt daunted as the three veteran warriors watched him, awaiting his answer. His mind was still bemused as he tried to absorb the knowledge not only that Marcellus lived, but that he had brought warriors to defend the City.

  ‘It is a matter of morale,’ he managed at last. ‘As in a battle, when one, or two, or a dozen flee, then others will leave in droves. But if their friends stand firm, then they will too, be they soldiers or townsfolk.’ He shrugged. It seemed obvious.

  ‘Then we must make our presence felt, you and I,’ Marcellus said to Vares and Darius. ‘If we stand firm, then so will our army.’

  Marcellus spent the rest of the day reviewing the components of the defence; he walked the ditch and earthwork, speaking to labourers and soldiers, flanked by Darius and Vares. As night fell he summoned Vares’ officers, to gauge their competence and resolve. Rubin was at his side throughout, exhilarated that his lord had not only returned but had apparently discarded his grievances with Archange to ally against their mutual enemy.

  It was midnight before Marcellus sent his officers to their rest and then sat down with Rubin in a chilly chamber in the Raven Tower. It was damp and smoky in there, lit only by the flicker of torches and a poor fire. Wind gusted down the chimney sending up showers of sparks from the embers in the hearth. Rubin slumped into a chair with a groan and pulled his cloak around his shoulders. A servant brought a flagon of warmed wine.

  ‘We are badly outnumbered,’ Marcellus reiterated, savouring the wine with a sigh. He seemed to notice neither the cold nor the fumes. ‘But I would not be here if we were not.’

  ‘The ditch will be full of water by morning,’ offered Rubin, who had been watching the engineers filling it. ‘It will hide the stakes.’

  Marcellus sniffed. ‘Any enemy commander worth his salt will predict they’ll be there. But they will still have to go over them. It will slow them a little. The problem,’ he went on, ‘is that the ditch will quickly become clotted with bodies, both theirs and ours. Once that happens the enemy will use them as a bridge to get to us.’

  Rubin shuddered as hideous images of the broken and trodden dead crowded into his mind. He had resolved to stand beside his lord when the enemy struck and to stay beside him until the end, in whatever manner that came, but the prospect filled him with dread.

  ‘Who is Hammarskjald?’ he asked, to vanquish the images of death and mutilation. ‘I have heard the name before, from my father, but I thought him long dead.’

  Marcellus leaned back and put his feet on the table. He took a deep draught of wine. He seemed content to talk into the night.

  ‘He was one of us,’ he replied, his eyes unfocused as he looked into the past. ‘A Serafim, one of the First. He was our doctor, a brilliant surgeon and a skilled physician. He was always confrontational and opinionated, and was much disliked from the outset.

  ‘Almost immediately we arrived here he disagreed with our leader’s plans, and their battles – of words – were volcanic. Eventually he departed, taking his people with him; we were short of medical aid and that callous act nearly doomed us all. That was in our very first year in this land. When he tried to return, many years later, his comrades all dead, Araeon banished him and swore he would be executed if he came b
ack. We all believed he was condemning Hammarskjald to death for this was a perilous place for a man alone. But he survived and prospered.’

  He swigged the wine, draining the cup. ‘After that he was a painful thorn in our side. He’d sabotage our plans and spread disaffection. He made alliances then reneged on them. And worse. He murdered some of our best. Araeon tried to have him killed, but Hammarskjald was clever, both brilliant and devious. And as the City grew so did his hatred of us.’

  Marcellus refilled his cup and called to his servant for more wine. ‘Hammarskjald threatened he would destroy the City. I thought he meant it at the time, but over the years it became easier to forget him, or think him dead. I for one underestimated him. I had no idea he possessed this much patience.’ He sighed and added, ‘I always rather liked him.’

  There was a comfortable silence in the stuffy room and Rubin found his fears dissolving in the warmth of the wine. Marcellus was rolling his empty cup between his palms, staring into the past.

  Rubin asked, ‘How did you raise an army of two thousand, lord? Where from?’

  Marcellus’ face darkened. ‘It was not difficult. Many of the City’s faithful warriors were angered by the machinations which brought Archange to power, and the deaths of those loyal to the emperor. Many who survived the carnage of the Day of Summoning departed the City. Eventually they ended up under my command again.’

  Too many questions jostled for attention in Rubin’s mind, but he asked the one that had bothered him most. ‘Where have you been for the past year, lord?’

  Marcellus shook his head. ‘Do not ask me that, boy. Who knows who will be in power when this war is done? You might end up on the wrong side. The less you know about some matters the better.’

  Gazing directly at Rubin, he said, ‘I hear you have discovered a Gift of the Serafim. I always predicted you would. Tell me.’

  Rubin wondered how he had heard. Only a handful of people knew of the extraordinary power he could wield and he wondered, not for the first time, if Marcellus had agents in the White Palace. His lord was watching him, waiting, and he cast his mind back to that bloody day two winters before and told Marcellus about the Odrysian attack on the City’s wounded at the medical camp below Needlewoman’s Notch.

  ‘I was still feeble from my injury,’ he explained. ‘I could not lift a sword. I could barely lift my hand. But Valla was there.’ He looked at Marcellus, who nodded. Marcellus’ command of the names of all his soldiers was legendary. ‘She was battling them single-handed – one-handed.’ He smiled briefly.

  ‘I remember reaching out to her. I think I wanted to save her. Or make her retreat and save herself. I don’t know. But as I stretched out I felt,’ he paused, trying to remember the feeling, ‘an energy – like a surge of lightning – run through me. It seemed to come up from the ground and sear through me and out through my fingers.’ He shivered at the memory and pulled his cloak up around his neck.

  ‘Did you kill them all?’ Marcellus asked, leaning forward, his black eyes gleaming.

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Rubin shook his head. ‘I wasn’t trying to kill them. I wanted to stop the killing. All the combatants, ours and the Blues, laid down their arms. They forgot what they were doing. Only Valla realized what was happening, then she attacked them.’

  Marcellus nodded. ‘A strong-minded woman.’

  ‘I know you possess such power,’ Rubin said hesitantly, for the subject had never arisen between them, ‘and Archange also. Much greater than mine,’ he added. ‘But I do not understand what it is or where it comes from.’

  Marcellus stood to stretch his back. ‘It is called einai,’ the lord said. ‘It is a perilous thing, both gift and curse. But I’m glad it has revealed itself in you. I always predicted you would be exceptional. You or your sister, or both. There were some among us, including Araeon, who thought you should both be despatched at birth. Your father, you see, was perhaps the only man he feared. I argued we should wait until you had reached adulthood, which is when the einai reveals itself. It seems Araeon was right, though, for it was Indaro who killed him in the end.’

  Rubin was silent and a sliver of fear trickled down his spine. He had been dismayed when first told of his sister’s treachery but thought it known only to a few. Now, it appeared, Marcellus had known all along. He was struggling to find words when the servant returned with more wine, and bread and meat. Marcellus sat down and took some bread.

  ‘Why does it emerge then?’ Rubin asked, to direct the subject away from Indaro. He helped himself to roast meat, greasy and warm.

  ‘It was designed that way. After all, such power should not be placed in the hands of children.’

  Rubin wondered if such power should be in the hands of anyone. ‘Designed by whom?’ he asked. ‘By you?’

  Marcellus laughed and the frigid air in the tower room grew warmer. ‘No, boy, not by me. I have been many things in my long life – soldier, politician, historian – but I was never a man of science.’

  Outside they heard men shouting and Marcellus paused, alert. Then the shouts dissolved into laughter and he spoke on.

  ‘We waited with much anticipation. It was the first time in generations that Serafim had produced offspring. And you and Indaro were the children of two Families – the Kerrs and Guillaumes. So we watched Indaro closely, but she showed no outstanding talent except as a swordswoman, and she had been trained from an early age by the very best. And then there was you.’ He smiled. ‘Again, you showed no special talents. Some believed the Gifts had passed over your generation and would reveal themselves in your children. Some thought the Gifts had ended with Reeve as they did with the Khans.’

  Rubin frowned. ‘So they were passed down through my mother, through her line?’ He felt uncomfortable speaking of his parents as though they were breeding cattle.

  Marcellus smiled and shrugged. ‘These things are impossible to chart with certainty. Gifts inherited through the female line are always considered pure, because a mother’s proof of parenthood is there to be seen. It is different for the father. Perhaps it was not Reeve who started that line which ended with you. That was the thinking at the time. But now we know that was wrong. You are both the son and the descendant of a Family line. You have proved it to my satisfaction. You will learn to manage it, enhance it, in due course.’

  ‘Someone told me once,’ Rubin said, the wine making him bold, ‘that you and Giulia Rae Khan were once wed.’

  He wanted to ask if they had offspring but Marcellus ignored the comment, so Rubin reverted to their earlier conversation. ‘Do you really believe Hammarskjald is responsible for the plague? How is that possible?’

  Marcellus looked up from his food and his black gaze was cold in the torchlight. ‘He has the skills and he has the malign will.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ he concluded, ‘I think it entirely likely.’

  ‘But he would kill his own soldiers as well as ours!’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see. One thing we can be sure of: Hammarskjald is prepared to throw his all into this wager. He has thought about it long and hard. And he will certainly have more pieces to play. We must be ready for anything.’

  Soldiers always say the waiting is the worst. And in Rubin’s experience of battle, it was true that the dry mouth and sweaty hands, full bladder, trembling and dread running through every nerve and sinew were bad. But they were as nothing compared with the gut-wrenching terror of actually being in battle – the panicked hacking and lunging at anything moving in front of you, the constant fear that a sharp blade will slice into your body from somewhere out of sight as you struggle to see from inside an echoing, stuffy helm. And the stench and blood and the agony-filled shrieks of the dead and dying.

  So, as he stood waiting at his lord’s shoulder at daybreak, he tried not to think.

  They were standing at the top of the new earthwork, separated from an army of forty thousand enemy infantry by the water-filled ditch and a few paces of rocky ground. The soldiers facing t
hem had no cannon, just sharp weaponry driven by muscle and bone and seething hatred. They bellowed and chanted, clashed their weapons and screamed taunts and curses and battle cries. Those in the front line were tattooed and dressed in hides and leather armour. Some carried cudgels but most held blades. These did not glint and gleam in the morning light as did those of the City soldiers, and Rubin realized with a roiling of his guts that their knives and swords were clotted with the dried blood of past opponents. Dawn was long gone and the morning slowly passing and still the enemy commanders held their army in check.

  The City warriors were motionless as statues, silent, as they had been trained.

  Marcellus stood with his two thousand, clad in armour of oxblood red. Rubin, in borrowed armour, was now junior aide to his lord. As such it was his duty to fight in a supporting role, to spot threats unnoticed by Marcellus, to deflect stray arrows, to offer his lord water if needed and to tend his wounds if it came to that. It was an honourable position, and Rubin kept telling himself that.

  When the drums finally rolled the enemy sprang forward like a rabid dog loosed from a leash. The tattooed fighters raced for the City lines, throwing themselves into the ditch yelling their battle cries, many then screaming in agony as they impaled themselves on the hidden stakes. But within heartbeats, it seemed, the front line of soldiers had surged across, reckless of their own dead and dying, and they were soon scrambling up the steep earthwork, knives between their teeth.

  As the first reached the top Marcellus, long cavalry sword in hand, strode forward and swung, chopping the man’s head off with one mighty blow. Blood sprayed. There was a pause, almost too brief to notice, and the horde fell on the City’s defenders.

  For a long time the front line held firm and the second-rankers had little to do but wait their turn. But then City soldiers began to fall before the onslaught. Rubin saw a tattooed face coming at him from his right and sprang to meet it. He parried a slashing blow to his neck, dodged left and skewered the man under his chest armour. His opponent kept coming for an instant, then collapsed. Rubin darted back to cover Marcellus, heart pounding, looking wildly around for the next attacker.