by Marc Turner
Grimes approached Ebon, his helmet tucked under one arm. “Your Majesty.”
Ebon glanced at the bodies in the stall. “What happened here, Sergeant?”
“Crowd of civvies stormed the barracks. Must’ve been after the horses. Wouldn’t take no for an answer, neither. We had to bloody a few before the others got the message.”
“And the consel?”
“Arrived just before you did and started helping himself. Should I have stopped him?”
Ebon gave a half smile. “Give me a moment,” he said, then strode toward the Sartorian company.
Garat scowled when he saw him.
“What’s this, Consel?” Ebon said. “You’re leaving us already?”
Garat gave a tight smile. “I’m afraid so, your Majesty. I have found the hospitality of your city to be somewhat lacking since my arrival.”
“I see your brother is not with you.”
A look of disgust crossed the consel’s face. “The thread of sorcery holding him is unbreakable, or so my sorceress would have me believe.”
“The efforts of my mages have proved similarly unsuccessful.”
“Then it seems my brother is beyond saving. Only vengeance is left to me now.”
“Perhaps we should combine our efforts. We ride to destroy the Fangalar—”
“The witch is of no interest to me,” Garat cut in. “Just one more puppet dancing on another man’s strings.”
“A man, you say?”
“Or woman. It matters not. The insult to me, to my nation, must be answered.”
Ebon eyed him skeptically. The consel appeared less concerned about Falin’s death than he did about the loss of face he would suffer if his brother’s death went unavenged. “You’re going after the puppet master, then? The Forest of Sighs is a big place.”
“The threads of sorcery will show us the way. Now, if you don’t mind, we have preparations to complete.”
Ebon held his gaze for a few heartbeats, wondering what the consel was holding back. “We will escort you to the gates.”
“As you will.”
Ebon turned away. As he crossed the yard to join Grimes’s troop he saw Mottle being helped by a soldier into the saddle of a gray. The mage almost overbalanced, and he threw his arms around the animal’s neck to halt his slide. The horse tossed its head, snorting. Ebon’s spirits rose to see Vale standing to one side, lifting a saddle onto the back of a chestnut stallion. Approaching him, the king said, “Well met, my friend.”
Vale grunted.
“How did you find us?”
“Saw the sorceress’s fireworks from across the river. Guessed you’d try and pull a stunt like this.” The Endorian’s gaze shifted to the Sartorians. “We got ourselves some help?”
“Only as far as the gates. The consel has his sights set on the forest.”
“Good,” Vale said, but as to why that was so, he did not explain.
A Guardsman approached leading a destrier by the reins. Ebon took them from him and stepped into the saddle. The soldier then passed him a spear, a shield, and a helmet. From the west came far-off shouts, the only noise from a city gone eerily silent beyond the barracks wall. Ebon turned to Mottle. “Mage, can you sense the Fangalar sorceress?”
Mottle’s horse was turning in a circle, pitching the old man from side to side. “Of course, my boy. She remains where she was, outside the city.”
“Is she guarded?”
“A handful of sentinels only. The witch’s sorcerous wards are her most formidable defense, but fear not, Mottle will deal with those.” The mage tugged on the reins, pulling his mount’s head up. The gray rolled its eyes before turning to snap at the old man.
Ebon strapped his shield to his left arm. “Perhaps a change of horse is in order.”
“What?” the mage spluttered, seizing a handful of the animal’s mane. “Just as Mottle is bringing the querulous beast to heel?”
A clatter of hooves signaled Garat’s approach. “It is past time we were leaving,” he said. “Which road do we take?”
“We head for the West Gate,” Ebon replied.
The consel barked a laugh. “The ruined guardhouse? You would have us ride into the teeth of the enemy?”
“We have no choice. I will not risk opening another gate.”
“The city is already lost.”
“And I will do nothing to hasten its fall. My people need time to fall back to the palace.”
“Fool!” Garat said. “You won’t even make it as far—”
“Nevertheless,” Ebon interrupted. “My mind is made up on this.”
The consel bit back a retort, then wheeled his horse. “So be it. We will cut a way through the rabble. Follow, if you can.”
The four armored demons unlimbered their axes and led the company onto Rook Way. Sartorian horsemen drew up behind them, riding eight abreast. Ebon saw Ambolina watching him dispassionately from the second rank. She sat straight-backed in her saddle, hands folded in her lap as if she were about to take a ride in the country. Ebon led Grimes’s troop to join the rear of the group, Vale on his left, Mottle on his right.
The streets were deserted. From along Rook Way came distant muted cries, the tread of feet, the jangle of armor. For the most part, though, the sounds of fighting were from the north. The river. Had the retreat become a rout already, then? And what of Rendale? Had Ebon’s brother managed to reach the bridges before the undead?
From a side street, a woman carrying a baby ran out in front of the consel’s demons. On seeing them she skidded to a halt only to slip and sprawl to the cobbles, turning as she fell to protect the infant in her arms. Within a heartbeat she was up again and hobbling back into the alley. As Ebon watched her disappear, his thoughts strayed to Lamella. Was she listening even now to the conflict surging closer, waiting for him to come for her? No, she knows where my first responsibility lies. Duty first, always. Forgive me.
The company rode in silence. This district of the city had been hit hard by the Red Tide nine days ago, and the shriveled bodies of scores of scorpions lay amid the dust beside the road. One of the houses to Ebon’s left had been reduced to rubble by falling debris from the guardhouse; another had lost half its roof to leave shattered beams sticking out like broken ribs. From a first-floor window, an old man stared at Ebon. He flinched as their gazes met, then reached out to close his shutters.
The king looked at Grimes to find the sergeant watching him in turn. A nod from Ebon, and the soldier began shouting orders. Four Pantheon Guardsmen dropped back from the troop, dismounted, and started pounding on doors. Against any other attacking force, the townsfolk’s best chance of survival might have been to lie low and wait for the dust to settle. Against an undead army, though, their only hope was to make it to the palace before the bridges fell.
Ebon lowered his helmet into place, his vision contracting to the rims of the eyepieces. The padding deadened the noise of distant fighting, and the spirits were no more than a murmur in his mind. He wiped his right palm on his shirt, then gripped his spear again. Ahead the way remained empty, but that couldn’t last long. Even as the thought came to Ebon, three red-cloaked soldiers appeared round a bend, a handful of paces in front of a disordered mass of undead.
Grimes bellowed, and the Guardsmen veered into a side alley.
The consel’s four demons sprang to engage the enemy. A Vamilian man was cut in half by a single ax stroke, the weapon entering below his right shoulder and exiting above his left hip. Another demon’s ax struck a building in its follow-through, and a wall crumbled into ruin. Mutilated bodies and severed limbs fell to the ground and were trampled beneath the feet of the armored warriors. But as the demons surged on, a handful of the mangled undead lurched upright again in their wake and turned to hack at the creatures’ backs.
At the consel’s order, the Sartorian horsemen spurred their mounts forward. The front line lowered their spears in unison, shouting battle cries as they smashed into the undead with a sound like a me
tallic peal of thunder. A Vamilian woman missing a chunk from her skull took a lance in the back with such force the weapon drove right through her and into the gut of another undead, pinning them together and sending them tumbling. A second woman, her stomach caved in where a demon must have stamped on it, was hit by the chest of a horse and flattened to the cobbles.
Ebon kicked his mount forward, a tickle of fear at the back of his throat. Impossibly, the stricken undead were beginning to rise again in the wake of the Sartorian charge. A horseman was dragged screaming from his saddle by a man he’d carved open moments earlier. Another Sartorian, slowing to help his companion, took a sword thrust in the neck and toppled from his saddle.
“Keep moving, soldiers!” Grimes shouted to his troop. “Any whoreson among you eases up, I’ll kill him myself!”
Then the undead were all about Ebon, and his world shrank to the few armspans round his destrier.
A woman with a gaping throat attacked from his left, swinging a rusty sword. He caught the blow on his shield, but before he could counter, his horse took him past. A man in the armor of a Pantheon Guardsman closed from his right, and for a heartbeat the king hesitated, suspecting the soldier was one of the undead, but not knowing for certain. A spear thrust at his head cleared up the confusion. Ebon brought up his shield to block, but Vale’s horse was already barreling into the attacker to send him sprawling. Vale shouted something Ebon couldn’t hear above the uproar, yet he could guess the message all the same. His next hesitation, the Endorian would be saying, could cost Ebon his life, but that was a risk the king would have to take.
A Vamilian woman ran at him from the left, and he buried his spear in her chest, tensing himself in readiness for some backlash from the spirits.
None came.
The woman twisted as she fell, and Ebon’s spear was torn from his hands. He drew his saber.
Vamilians were now pouring from a side street. Ahead one of the demons was battling a four-armed spearman, the undead warrior jabbing out with its spears in search of a weak spot in the demon’s armor until an ax stroke broke through his defenses and sheared off his head. To Ebon’s right, a Galitian woman holding a cleaver was clambering onto the rump of Garat Hallon’s horse. Instinctively Ebon spurred his mount forward, reaching the consel just as the woman raised her weapon. The king’s blade took her in the side and knocked her to the ground. As she fell he felt something pierce the armor on his right side. The point of a knife scraped against his ribs, sending a twist of agony through his chest. Gritting his teeth, he hacked down at the arm wielding the dagger. Limb and blade fell away.
What remained of the West Gate was visible now to Ebon’s right. As Rook Way opened out onto the marketplace, the cobbles gave way to hard-packed dirt and clouds of dust. The padding of Ebon’s helmet was becoming damp, and his sword arm was aching from the ceaseless slashing and hacking. A man rushed at him from the left, sword raised—another Pantheon Guardsman, and this time there was no doubting his intent. His gaze locked with Ebon’s. The soldier’s expression was blank, but there was something behind his eyes, a recognition …
The merest hitch in his stride, then he came on.
Ebon lashed out with his shield, and its rim slammed into the man’s forehead, snapping his head back. He crumpled to the ground.
The ruined guardhouse was directly in front now, but still tantalizingly out of reach. The consel’s demons had slowed almost to a halt, the advancing host of undead plugging the gap in the battlements like a cork in a bottleneck. Blood pounded at Ebon’s temple, and he could feel more blood flowing from the cut in his side, soaking his shirt round the wound. Every movement sent a jolt of pain through his chest as if he were being stabbed anew. To his right Mottle was wrestling with his horse’s reins. A spear hurled at the mage hit an invisible barrier and bounced away. Then Mottle’s mount seemed to trip, and Ebon lost sight of the old man amid the melee.
An unseen blow glanced off the armor at his back. A Vamilian man with a sword lodged in his neck stumbled into Ebon’s destrier, tugging its head round as his hands tangled in the reins. Ebon swayed in the saddle, kicked out, and connected with a boot to the man’s chin. Ebon found himself looking back the way he’d come across the marketplace. The remainder of Grimes’s troop, less than a dozen red-cloaked riders, were fighting a desperate rearguard action. Vale was there, his sword a blur as he dealt out destruction to the undead round him. But for every undead assailant struck down, two more rose in his place.
We are trapped. Retreat was no more an option now than making the gates seemed to be. The end, Ebon sensed, was but moments away, but at least by fighting the undead here he was keeping them from joining the battle at the bridges. The thought came as scant consolation. If he fell, he promised himself no power would make him turn on his kinsmen. But then doubtless every Galitian who had died this morning had believed the same, and he pictured himself raising a sword against Lamella, the look of betrayal in her eyes …
Yanking on his reins, he turned his destrier back toward the ruins of the West Gate.
In time to see Ambolina gesture with one hand. The four armored demons surged left and right to leave her standing alone before the undead spilling through the opening in the city wall. A wave of black fire leapt from her hands. The Vamilians in its path burst into flames and disintegrated, flesh and bone collapsing into steaming piles of detritus. The consel’s demons charged into the void, Garat’s and Ambolina’s mounts at their heels. As Ebon spurred after them, his destrier slipped for an instant on the slick ground before righting itself and springing forward. Bones crunched underfoot.
From outside the city, Vamilians came surging back through the gap like a wave through a fissure in a seawall. The demons hit them in a line, axes swinging tirelessly, and the enemy ranks crumbled. An undead warrior had climbed onto a mound of rubble where the guardhouse had been, and now threw himself at one of the demons as it passed. A metal fist swung to meet him, catching him a blow to the skull and half spinning him round. His momentum still carried him crashing into the demon. He slid to the ground and was trampled into the dirt.
Suddenly Ebon was past the wall. The crush of Vamilians was thickest ahead and to his left, while to his right—the direction of the river—the undead were spread more thinly. At a command from Ambolina the demons turned that way, punching a path through the enemy. Rising in his stirrups, Ebon looked round for the Fangalar sorceress, but he could see nothing through the dust beyond a score of paces.
As the numbers of undead fell away, the demons changed course again, curling round to the west and the Forest of Sighs. Ebon caught sight of the wreckage of the consel’s camp, wisps of black smoke spiraling up into the sky. The only enemy in front of him now were scattered Vamilians emerging in a trickle from the woods. He looked over his shoulder expecting to see undead following them, but the foe was apparently happy to let the company go, for there was no sign of any pursuit. Whatever the reason for the attack on the city, it seemed neither Ebon nor the consel was its target.
The Sartorian camp was surrounded by a ditch an armspan deep. Earth had been piled up on the inside, faced with turf, and leveled off to form a low rampart. A road crossed the ditch on this side, and the demons followed this into the center of the encampment before slowing to a halt. Ebon drew up behind them. The place was bigger than some of the military camps he’d visited. Towering over him was the consel’s pavilion—a mountain of rippling golden canvas from which the Sartorian flag flew. A handful of the tents had been gutted by fire to leave just scraps of charred cloth and squares of blackened grass. The ground between them was dotted with blocks of stone and splinters of wood. Ebon’s eyes widened. The guardhouse? Could rubble from the explosion have carried this far?
At Garat’s order, Sartorian soldiers dismounted to gather supplies and take down the flag over the pavilion. Ambolina had survived the clash unscathed, but the consel’s first adviser, Pellar Hargin, was missing.
Ebon’s fingers explored the
cut to his side. Through his bloodstained armor he could feel a broken knife point beneath his skin. Every breath sawed in his chest, but he would have to wait a while before removing the shard of metal. Vale, Mottle, and the remnants of Grimes’s troop filtered into the camp. Aside from the sergeant, only six red-cloaked soldiers had survived, every one of them battered and bloodied. Grimes had lost his helmet, and four angry red scratches marked the left side of his face.
Garat steered his horse to Ebon. “You saved my life,” he spat.
It was a moment before the king could respond. “My apologies. I will try not to make the same mistake again.”
“Do you claim blood debt?”
“I am unfamiliar with your customs—”
“Blood of my blood has first calling. Do you deny me this?”
For a heartbeat Ebon was tempted to call in the debt and demand that Garat unleash Ambolina and her demons against the undead sorceress. He knew the consel well enough by now, though, to realize the Sartorian would refuse him if he tried to do so. Men like Garat Hallon honored their obligations only if and when it suited them to do so. “I deny you nothing,” he said. “Now, leave us. We have work to do.”
Garat’s humorless smile told Ebon he’d read the man right. The consel jabbed a finger at him. “Stay alive, your Majesty. The debt survives only as long as you do.” He wheeled his horse.
Putting the Sartorian from his mind, Ebon took off his helmet. The wind was hot on his skin as he looked back at the city. Between the remains of two tents he could make out the undead army still streaming through the breach in the city walls. There was no sign of the Fangalar sorceress.
Grimes spoke. “What’s the plan?”
Ebon looked at Mottle. “Mage, can the Fangalar sorceress sense us?”
The old man was sitting in front of his horse’s saddle, his legs wrapped round the beast’s neck. “Mottle suspects so, my boy. The witch observed our departure from the city, but she made no attempt to intervene. Her attitude is, Mottle believes, one of indifference.” The mage’s tone was indignant.