by Marc Turner
Ebon had seen enough. “Vale,” he said. As he crossed to the stairwell he tightened one of the straps of his leather armor.
“What in the Watcher’s name are you playing at?” the Endorian said in a low voice. “How’s Grimes supposed to do his job if he’s busy trying to keep you alive?”
“That’s what you are here for.”
“One stray arrow—”
“Enough! My mind is made up.” A commander didn’t ask his men to take risks he wasn’t prepared to run himself.
As he entered the guardroom, the first peal of bells started up from along the wall. In the time it took him to cross the chamber, the call had been taken up by other watchtowers and rang out across the city. He left the guardhouse and entered the marketplace. Sergeant Grimes’s troop had drawn up facing the gates, and the soldiers were making their final preparations with reassuring aplomb. In addition to their lances, a dozen of the horsemen carried torches.
Ebon made for Grimes. The sergeant was settling his full-face helmet into position. The figure of a boar was etched into the left cheek-piece.
“Sergeant,” Ebon said. “I need two horses.”
The soldier held his gaze for a moment before looking at Vale.
“Save your breath,” the Endorian said. “I’ve already tried.”
When Grimes spoke, his voice was deadened by his faceplate. “He’s your baby, timeshifter.”
“Ain’t he always.”
Ebon crossed his arms. “Are we finished, gentlemen?”
Grimes looked over his shoulder. “Skip. Turtle. You’re on shoveling duty. Give the men your rides.”
The king strode to one of the soldiers who dismounted, then accepted the man’s offered lance and swung up into the saddle. The destrier snorted and shifted as the Guardsman adjusted the stirrups.
Grimes said, “What’re we dealing with, your Majesty? Reynes’s runner ain’t told us shit.”
“The consel is under attack. Maybe the Kinevar, maybe not. The Sartorians have abandoned their camp and are heading this way.”
“You want us to cover their retreat?” Grimes’s tone held a note of amusement.
Ebon nodded, then raised his voice to carry to the soldiers. “Pick your targets carefully. I want no mistakes out there.”
“Aye,” someone at the back of the troop said. “Shroud’s own luck if we end up spitting the consel.”
The soldiers round Ebon chuckled.
“I will pretend I did not hear that,” he muttered. Then he shouted, “Open the gates!”
The wooden doors swung wide, and the king spurred his horse forward, lowering his lance as he passed through the guardhouse before raising it again when he was clear. Ahead a cart had been abandoned on the road, one end of its front axle resting on the flagstones beside a broken wheel. Ebon rode past it, then steered his destrier west in the direction of the camp. The clip-clatter of the horse’s hooves turned to muffled thuds as the animal left the road.
As the light from the guardhouse faded behind, Ebon kicked his mount to a canter. Shadowy figures moved in the darkness ahead, and for an instant he wondered whether he was riding into a trap. Could Garat Hallon have staged the attack on the camp in order to lure him out of the city? Would a stray arrow strike him down, as it had Janir’s wife so many years ago, before the attackers melted away into the forest? No, Ebon assured himself. The consel would not risk such an act of treachery so deep into Galitian territory.
A third Sartorian tent had now been set on fire, and scores of combatants fought silhouetted against the flames. Ahead three Sartorians emerged from the blackness, their rust-colored skins unmistakable in the light of the torches held by the Guardsmen behind Ebon. Two women were struggling to support a man between them, his bearded chin resting on his chest. They stumbled to a halt as the Galitians bore down on them.
“Let them pass between us!” Ebon shouted, not knowing if the troop would hear him over the thunder of hooves.
As he drew level with the women, he saw a bare-chested Sartorian horseman in front, hacking down with an ax at three assailants on foot. The enemy wore coats of chain mail to their knees, and wielded curved swords. Ebon blinked. Not Janir’s men, but not Kinevar either. Yet they came from the forest … We have our answer to the Kinevar exodus, I think. Ebon recognized the attackers, he realized suddenly, but from where?
With a growing sense of apprehension, he lowered his lance.
Abruptly, the voices in his mind rose in an angry crescendo, and he found himself battling an impulse to pull the weapon away. What in the Nine Hells? The tip veered to Ebon’s right, and his arm shook as he fought to bring the lance back into position. He selected his target and aimed for the enemy’s chest. The point of the weapon took the man just above the heart, and he was lifted from his feet and thrown several armspans through the dust.
Ebon felt a surge of rage from the spirits, and a stabbing pain shot through his head. Stifling a groan, he dropped his splintered lance and raised his hands to his head. Images flashed before his eyes: a forest ablaze; trees burning to ash in white heat; scarlet flames leaping into a night sky filled with screams. Then the spirits came shrieking up from the dark recesses of his mind, snarling and snapping and grasping as they tried to drag him down into blackness. But this was no dream like the one Ebon had endured at Lamella’s home earlier. Here, in the waking world, he was in control, and he emptied his mind, seeking the same focus that had enabled him to resist the spirits’ previous attempts at possession. Slowly their screams receded, their grip on him weakening. The images of fire faded.
When his vision finally cleared, he found his destrier had halted fifty paces from the consel’s encampment. His troop’s charge had driven the attackers back to the camp’s perimeter, but now faltered. Ebon could make out knots of Sartorians among the combatants, some still in their night attire, but there was no sign of Garat Hallon. The consel’s four armored warriors fought together in the thick of the battle, dealing out carnage with their axes. But they were being forced back a step at a time by sheer weight of numbers, and yet more of the enemy were pouring out of the darkness in a silent tide.
Silent … It struck Ebon then that the attackers fought and fell without a sound. No cries of pain or fear, no pleas for help or mercy.
A crash of sorcery to Ebon’s left set his ears ringing, momentarily drowning out the murmur of the spirits. He drew his saber. The spirits clearly didn’t want him joining this fight, but that only steeled his resolve to do so. To his right, Vale was hacking and slashing at a cluster of assailants surrounding him, and Ebon urged his horse to advance. A woman moved to block his path, her sword stabbing for his stomach. He turned the thrust aside with his saber, then hauled on his reins. His horse reared. One of its flailing hooves dealt the woman a crack to the side of the head that spun her from her feet. As she fell, Ebon caught a glimpse of her face: high forehead, deep-set eyes, bloodless skin.
His mouth was dry as he remembered where he had seen the enemy before. The spirits of my dreams …
No, it cannot be.
Two more swordsmen rushed from the darkness to his left. The first man was missing half his face; the second had the stub of a broken lance protruding from his chest. There was no pain in their expressions, no hesitation in their movements. And no blood. No time to make sense of it now. Ebon blocked a sword thrust from the first assailant and twisted his weapon to hack down at the man’s neck. As his blade buried into flesh he felt a stab through his head from the spirits that tore a gasp from his lips. He didn’t see the weapon that grazed the armor at his right side, nor the hands that reached up to try to pull him from the saddle. “To the king! Protect the king!” someone was shouting, but Ebon wasn’t going to wait for help to come. Using his knees, he set his destrier spinning in a circle. The animal cannoned into an unseen attacker, and the grasping hands fell away.
Ebon looked round and saw a Pantheon Guardsman take a sword in the gut and topple backward out of his saddle. There was n
o sign of Vale. Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed one of his attackers—the man missing half his face—rise to his feet again.
Time to get out of here. “To the city!” Ebon yelled, whirling his saber in the air. “The city!”
The cry was taken up by other voices.
Ebon steered his horse toward a Sartorian woman fighting a one-eyed swordsman. The destrier smashed into him, and Ebon offered his free hand to the Sartorian. Seizing it, she swung up behind him, arms locking round his chest. He spurred his mount for the guardhouse.
Ahead dozens of Sartorians were fleeing for the city on foot flanked by riders from Grimes’s troop. Ebon could not see Vale among them, but the consel was there, riding back and forth through his kinsmen and calling out something Ebon could not hear. He switched his gaze to the city. A beacon had been lit in the highest turret of the guardhouse, bathing the walls in light. As the king drew closer he saw the battlements to either side were lined with archers fitting arrows to bows.
Moments later he reined up his slavering horse beside the abandoned cart in front of the gates. Two red-cloaked Guardsmen rushed to catch the Sartorian woman as she slid from the horse’s rump. Another soldier reached for the destrier’s reins, but Ebon waved him away and spun his mount to face the consel’s camp.
Grimes rode by, calling for Ebon to follow him into the city. The sergeant had lost his helmet and his left ear was streaming blood. Still there was no sign of Vale. A group of Sartorians stumbled past, followed by a scattering of Pantheon Guardsmen. Next came more Sartorians, then the consel’s sorceress, Ambolina, and the giant armored warriors, all seemingly unharmed. As they trotted by, Ebon’s destrier shied away.
Garat Hallon emerged from the gloom, still mounted on his horse and looking back all the while. A lone Sartorian man was limping behind him, no more than half a score of paces ahead of a ragged line of the enemy.
“Archers!” Ebon shouted.
A volley of arrows whipped through the air and found their targets.
The lead ranks of attackers, studded now like pincushions, barely broke stride. In front of them, the hobbling Sartorian lost his footing, and the enemy swept over him.
Watcher’s tears.
Garat drew his horse up beside Ebon’s, staring grimly at the camp. His cloak and doublet were torn at the left shoulder, the blue silk marred by a black stain. His sword was covered with tangled hair and fragments of bone.
Another volley of arrows thudded uselessly into the approaching host. The forerunners were now less than sixty paces away. Ebon’s gaze was drawn to a woman at the front. Her robes and hair were aflame, yet still she managed to keep pace with her companions.
“Consel,” the king said, slamming his saber into its scabbard. “It is time.”
Garat did not answer. He glared at the enemy with an expression of such venom that Ebon thought he intended to charge them. His eyes were darting all the time, first along the line of approaching swordsmen, then to the darkness beyond them, then to the city gates, and finally back to the enemy.
Fifty paces.
Still, he made no move to retreat.
Forty paces.
“Consel,” Ebon snapped. “We are within spear range.”
Only then did Garat yank on his horse’s reins and steer the animal through the gates. Ebon followed him inside.
The wooden gates creaked as they shut behind him.
The marketplace was lit by dozens of torches, and the streets leading off it had been sealed off by cordons of Pantheon Guardsmen. The air was filled with the cries of the wounded, the bawling of officers, the stamping of horses. A short distance away the soldiers of Grimes’s troop were dismounting, calling out responses to their sergeant’s bellowed questions. Among the Guardsmen a destrier was down on its knees, coughing blood to the cobbles. One of the soldiers drew his sword and knelt beside it.
Ebon looked away.
The surviving Sartorians had gathered to his left, and a blue-robed Royal Physician was moving among them. The consel’s first adviser, Pellar Hargin, sat with his back to a wall, his eyes glazed, flinching as the enemy began pounding on the city gates. The consel’s four armored warriors were there too, along with Garat’s sorceress. She must have sensed Ebon’s attention because she turned to stare at him. He inclined his head in greeting, but she did not return the gesture.
Swinging down from his saddle, he passed the destrier’s reins to a waiting Guardsman.
“Here,” a voice called.
The king turned to see Vale leaning against the guardhouse wall, honing the edge of his longsword with a whetstone. He sheathed his blade as Ebon approached. “You left it late,” the Endorian said.
“I lost you out there.”
“I didn’t lose you.”
The king watched as six men struggled to lower a crossbeam into position across the gates. “Casualties?”
“Four we know about. Few more unaccounted for.”
“And the Sartorians?”
Vale snorted. “It’s a miracle any of them survived. Half the consel’s company are servants and diplomats. Why in Shroud’s name did he keep them out there so long?”
“Have you forgotten what he said in the throne room? ‘I think we can take care of ourselves,’ wasn’t it?”
The Endorian’s expression had a haunted cast to it. “Aye, but against an enemy like that…”
He did not need to finish the thought. In Ebon’s mind’s eye he saw again the faces of the foes he had struck down. So like the Vamilians in his dream, both in dress and countenance. Impossible, of course … yet it would explain why the spirits had reacted as they had when he attacked the strangers. Like they were protecting their own. If Mottle was to be believed, though, the Vamilians had died out millennia ago. Something these assailants had shown no sign of doing.
Vale caught Ebon’s eye and nodded at something over his shoulder. The king followed his gaze to see Garat prowling among his kinsmen shouting questions. Questions that seemed to be going unanswered. With a command for Ambolina to accompany him, he strode toward the guardroom.
“I want to see this,” Ebon said. With Vale a step behind, he followed the Sartorians inside and up the stairwell.
By the time he reached the battlements, Garat was already squinting over the parapet. A great host of the enemy had gathered at the base of the wall. A score of them were beating at the gates with their fists, while yet more attackers were scrambling at the wall in a futile effort to climb. At any other time Ebon might have found the sight amusing.
Reynes stood where the king had left him. Mottle was with the general, together with Sergeant Ketes and another officer Ebon did not recognize. There was a stunned note to the silence of the assembled Pantheon Guardsmen. Like the silence that followed a defeat in battle, yet the sortie had gone as well as Ebon could have hoped. The archers had stopped firing and were now staring down at the enemy, their faces pale in the light from the flaming beacon.
“Reynes,” Ebon said, joining the general. “What news from the other walls?”
Reynes spat over the battlements. “Same story to the north and south, your Majesty, though it seems there’s more of the bastards here than at the other gates. They’ve started circling east. Another quarter-bell and we’ll be surrounded.”
“You have sent out messengers, I trust?”
“Aye, to Culin and Kolamin. The garrison at Jagel should also see our beacons.”
Unless the village has already fallen. “Mottle, what can you sense on the Currents? Is ours the only city under attack?”
The mage gave no indication he had heard. He was gazing out over the hordes with a look of childlike wonder.
“Mottle!”
“Majestic, is it not!” the old man breathed. “Such power, my boy! A shroud of sorcery envelops this dread host.”
“What kind of sorcery?”
“Why, death-magic, of course. An army of the undead, yes?” The old man drew himself up. “It is as Mottle predicted.
A storm, he said. A convergence of fell powers. This land is stained in the blood of countless generations. Ancient peoples, civilizations long fallen and now risen again.”
“Ancient civilizations,” Reynes said, “would be naught but bones by now.”
“Reanimated, the Vamilians have been. Clothed in flesh, if not in life—”
Reynes’s snort cut him off. “Save your stories for the campfire, old man.”
Mottle cocked his head. “Does the general mistrust the evidence of his own eyes? Perhaps he has another explanation for what besets us.”
Vale spoke. “I speared one of them, Reynes.” He tapped his chest over the heart. “Left a hole in him as big as my fist. The bastard just got up again.”
Mottle nodded. “What is dead already cannot die.”
The general made to speak, but Ebon raised a hand to silence him. He looked down on the undead army. The glow from the tower’s beacon extended a stone’s throw from the guardhouse. Within the light were scores of Vamilians along with two dozen Sartorians and even three red-cloaked Pantheon Guardsmen—members of Grimes’s troop, no doubt, who had fallen in the ride to the camp. In the darkness beyond, however, Ebon could make out only shadows. “Mottle,” he said. “How many are we dealing with here?”
“A good question, my boy. Alas, Mottle’s arts cannot—”
“You are an air-mage, are you not? Part these clouds and let us see what the moon shows us.”
The old man blinked. “Mottle was just about to suggest—”
He was interrupted by a shout from the consel. “Sorceress!” Garat called to Ambolina. “I see him! There, among the rabble.” He was pointing into the ranks of the enemy.
When the dark woman replied, her voice was as deep as Garat’s. “He was struck down, Consel. I saw his head caved in.”
“Then where is the wound? I see none upon him.”
“He is dead. Most likely he has been raised by the same power that animates these others. Why else do the undead not attack him?”
“Maybe I should send you down there to ask them.”