by Gav Thorpe
He was numb, in mind and body. He saw the remains of a mother and two children buried under a pile of bricks, their bodies crushed by the collapsed building, and it meant nothing to the lord of Magilnada. Blood stained the flagstones underfoot and he stumbled through ruddy-tinged puddles. Dust filled the air, coating his clothes, choking eyes, ears and mouth.
The handcart jarred against something, bringing Anglhan to a stop. He looked back dumbly and saw that a severed arm had become trapped in the spokes of a wheel. Disgust, despair, anger had all run their course, and now Anglhan bent down, tossed aside the offending object and carried on without a second thought.
A boulder smashed through the roof of a house ahead, sending up shards of tiles and a cloud of plaster dust. Anglhan did not flinch. He barely heard the shriek of a man who came stumbling out of the damaged building, a splinter the size of a sword jutting from his shoulder. He made a grab for Anglhan, eyes pleading, but the ruler of the devastated city swiped away the man's hand and pushed him back.
He had to get out.
The city was surrounded. As far as Anglhan knew, nobody had escaped the ring of Askhans. Until that morning, he had harboured the hope that he would be able to slip away in the confusion and carnage of the final assault. That hope had been dashed the moment he realised the Askhans planned to kill everyone in the city. It would not matter if he could disguise himself in a flood of refugees, he would be cut down all the same.
So it was that he followed the last-ditch plan he had concocted more than a year ago, when he had first considered crowning himself ruler of the Free Country. He did not do so with hope of expectation, or even desperation. He walked through the city simply because the alternative was to wait in the palace to die. He was not a fighter, and he was sure that Ullsaard would give orders to ensure he was captured alive. Anglhan bore no illusions about the fate being taken prisoner would bring. Torture and an agonising death would be his only future.
He came upon Spring Road, where the wells that served the city were found, fed by underground rivers from the Altes Hills. There was a large crowd of people, scrabbling with one another to get fresh water. People wanted to drink; none gave thought to the dozens of fires that still burned in the city.
Anglhan was not interested in the fresh springs. It was pointless to stave off death by thirst just to wait for a legionnaire's spear. He moved around the crowd, avoiding the gazes of the desperate citizens, and made his way over a shallow pile of debris into a half-ruined wooden hall.
Inside stank of shit and piss, for this was the wastehouse of the upper city. Separate from the river and pools that brought the city drinking water, another foaming rivulet cascaded down into the plains, accessed by three deep brick-lined holes. In normal times, the nightmen and pissboys would collect the waste of the nobles and flush it away down the open sewer; the common folk brought their own filth to dispose. Nobody knew where the stream went – Shit River as it was known – and until now nobody had cared.
Anglhan pulled a scarf from his belt and wrapped it over his mouth and nose; it did little to ward away the stench, but at least he would not get sprays of effluent in his mouth. He lifted the small chest from the cart and set it onto the lip of the closest sewer well. From the cart he brought forth a length of rope and tied it about his chest in the manner of a topman on his old landship. A memory flickered through his dulled mind, of teaching the same knot to a rebel chieftain.
Searching for something secure to tie the other end of the rope to, he spied a fallen beam from the broken roof. Tying the rope with nimble hands, he tested the knot and shuffled back to his chest. He passed the rope through a metal ring on one end and secured the chest to his belt. It weighed heavily at the moment, but it was only half-full, the rest of the space taken up by an inflated bladder that would keep the chest afloat once he was in the waterway.
Without any hesitation, no thoughts of what he had lost or the misery he had brought upon the thousands of people he had ruled, Anglhan flicked the rope over the wall of the well and heaved himself up to the lip. Inside, the bricks were coated with an uneven layer of dried waste, looking much like brown and black ice. The smell hit him with renewed strength as he swung his legs into the opening and dangled at the edge.
Working the rope through the special knot at his waist, Anglhan lowered himself towards the foaming water far below. In small drops, feet braced against the wall, the former lord of Magilnada left his city, face red with effort, the scarf across his face wet with his panting breath and sweat.
His foot slipped and for a moment he swung from side to side, toes scraping at the accreted shit for purchase. He eventually came to a stop and started down again. His feet were almost in the torrent when he noticed something different. He listened and could not place what he heard; then realised that it was quiet.
The Askhan drums had stopped. The assault was about to begin.
With a last effort, he slipped the knot free and dropped into the water. Foam bubbled around him as the current grabbed his legs and swept him away. His sodden clothes dragged at him and he clawed at the surface of the river. He snatched away the scarf and arched his neck to gasp for air, the small chest of money bobbing along beside him.
Only now did he feel something. Freedom. He laughed and spluttered, imagining Ullsaard's rage when he discovered Anglhan had escaped.
"Fuck Ullsaard!" Anglhan shouted, barely hearing his own voice over the rush of the river.
A moment later he was dashed against an outcrop of rock, his head cracking against stone, knocking him out.
X
Ullsaard had razed farms, villages, even towns, but he had never destroyed a whole city. A bank of oily smoke obscured the peaks behind Magilnada, blotting out everything around the city. Most of the flames were pyres, upon which the thousands of dead were burned. It had taken four days to take Magilnada; already five days had been spent collecting and disposing of the bodies. It was a grim task made all the more laborious because of Ull saard's instructions to check every corpse to identify Anglhan's body. So far he had not been found, and Ullsaard was depressed at the realisation that in all likelihood the former governor had somehow eluded him.
Those companies not detailed on the corpse-burning were at work with the engineers, levelling every building, pulling down the great curtain wall, shattering bricks and breaking up stone blocks. The sound of their labour rang far across the Magilnadan gap, and it would continue for many more days to come.
Ullsaard sat in his pavilion and worked out what to do next. There was so much debris to search through, it could take dozens of days before Anglhan's remains might be found, if they existed at all. Practicality had to triumph over vengeance for the moment; supplies were already moving dawnwards to the Askhan legions and the offensive needed to start again. There was nothing Ullsaard could do to hasten the discovery of Anglhan or help with the utter destruction of Magilnada. His duty was to rejoin his army after long absence and lead the attack on Carantathi.
"Happy with your handiwork?"
Looking up, Ullsaard saw Noran stepping into the cloth-walled chamber. Some of the colour had returned to his face, but he still looked weak.
"You should be resting," said the king, standing up to direct his friend to a chair.
Noran sagged into the canvas seat with a long exhalation. He took a moment to regain his breath.
"You have not answered my question," said Noran. "Are you happy now that Magilnada is destroyed?"
"Happy? No," said Ullsaard, sitting down again. "You know that I do not enjoy senseless slaughter. Satisfied, perhaps, but not happy. I'll be happy when I see Anglhan's mutilated remains hanging from a pole."
"A whole city killed for revenge against one man? That seems excessive, even by our standards."
"This wasn't just about Anglhan, though he was the reason it began," said the king. "I've destroyed Magilnada. When word of that spreads, who will dare to oppose my legions? I will send a message that any who choose to figh
t me will suffer the same consequences. I was too soft in my last approach. Not this time. We will do this the true Askhan way. Any that submit will be helped; any that resist will be slain. Even Aegenuis cannot ignore that message."
"Are you so sure that Aegenuis will receive the message?" said Noran. "Nobody is left alive to take it to him."
"He will get the message," Ullsaard assured his friend with a wry smile. "If not from the living, then from the dead. But enough of that, why are you here? You really should not be out of bed; your recovery is just starting."
"I am leaving," Noran said, meeting Ullsaard's gaze. "I cannot stay here."
"Is that wise?" said the king. "You don't look fit to travel yet."
"Yet travel I will," said Noran. "I will leave camp today. I would appreciate it if you could provide me with a small guard; I gather Askhans might not be too popular in these parts at the moment."
"Of course," said Ullsaard. "I can provide an escort back to Askh without any trouble. Twenty men should suffice."
At this, Noran looked away.
"I am not going to Askh," he said.
"Why not? Your family is there. So is Meliu, if you are still interested in her. Where else will you go?"
"To the villa in Geria. I cannot think to see my family at the moment, and though she is wonderful, I can do without Meliu's fussing too."
"Why leave at all? I know the campaign road is not comfortable, but I would be glad of your company on it."
At this Noran's face was creased by a pained expression. Ullsaard was out of his chair in a moment, crossing to his friend's side. He placed a hand on Noran's shoulder but it was shrugged away. Noran pushed himself up and stepped towards the door.
"I cannot stay," said the nobleman. "Not here. Not with you."
"Why not?" said Ullsaard, following after him. "Have I done something wrong?"
"Being near you is not good for me, Ullsaard!" Noran confessed, the words uttered through gritted teeth. "I love you like a brother, I suppose, but these last years, you have brought me pain and misery and little else."
"I am sorry," said Ullsaard, flushed with regret. "I thought that perhaps I had restored the balance, by giving you the means to live again."
"And that is the worst of all!" snapped Noran. "What do you think I see when I look at you? A friend? A king? No, I see the man whose own life diminishes by an hour for every hour that I live. I would end it now, if I was not such a coward, and if it would not make a mockery of the sacrifice you have made already. So, I have to leave. Seeing you is a torture to me. Thinking about what you have done, it torments me, more even than the death of Neerita and my son. Death follows you Ullsaard, and mine should have been counted amongst the toll, but you could not even allow me that."
"I had no idea." Ullsaard sought for the right words, for an argument, for something that would give Noran comfort. His mind was too tumultuous for any such thing.
"I do not know if I will ever be able to look at you again, as we both get older, knowing that I live only at your expense when I sought to save your life," said Noran. There were tears in his eyes as he reached the door and looked back, almost flinching at what he saw. "I do not blame you, Ullsaard. I do not hate you, though some would say I have reason to. You did not do this to me out of malice, but you ignored my wishes and we both have to live with the consequences."
Then he slipped outside, leaving Ullsaard alone. The king was stunned. He had never contemplated such a thing happening. Immediately his thoughts went to Allenya, and he wished again that he had not sent her away. He sat down in his chair, hands on knees, and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
APARTIS, SALPHORIA
Summer, 212th year of Askh
The water jug was empty. Aegenuis placed it back on the table and sighed. He questioned again the counsel that had brought him here, to the most arid part of Salphoria, at the height of summer. It had seemed a wise decision at the time, to scatter the tribes ahead of the renewed Askhan advance, hiding in the mountains and forests; the Askhans would be mad to send any force of size into the scrub of Apartis. If the Askhans could not find their foes, they could not defeat them, or so had been the wisdom of his advisors. So it was that he was sat in a dead chieftain's ramshackle hall in a half-ruined town, seven thousand of his men drinking the meagre wells dry.
The Askhans' tenacity infuriated the Salphorian king. Half starved, assailed for three seasons by their foes, the Askhans had simply sat tight in their camps and waited. It was unnatural, the king had concluded. The Brotherhood must put something in their rations to make them so obedient. Thinking of the Brotherhood led Aegenuis's thoughts to Leraates, the Brother who had promised so much. Nothing had been seen of him since he had returned to the empire last winter. With the Askhan legions advancing dawnwards more quickly than last time, Aegenuis knew when he had lost an ally.
In fact, his list of allies was rapidly dwindling to none. It was obvious that Anglhan had failed in his bid to cut off the Askhan legions. Of the three dozen tribal leaders who had sworn new oaths of allegiance last summer, perhaps twenty were still alive and loyal; the others had thrown in their lot with the Askhans or simply vanished. Even those who still professed to follow Aegenuis, he could number on one hand those that he actually trusted.
He tipped jug to cup again, forgetting that there was no water. Frustrated, he hurled the ewer at the wall. Hearing the commotion, two servants hurried into the hall from the kitchens.
"More water!" Aegenuis bellowed at them.
"There is no more," one said while the other shrugged apologetically.
"Find some!"
The servants scurried away, darting anxious looks at their ruler before vanishing into the kitchens. Aegenuis's fists thumped onto the table as he leaned forward, bowing his head to his chest. Sweat dripped from his nose and brow, and matted his long hair and beard. He licked dry lips, trying to put aside his thirst so that he could think properly.
The main doors creaked open. Sunlight streamed into the hall to overwhelm the guttering light of the candles in the windowless hall. Several men entered, the first of them Aegenuis's son, Medorian. The other four, chieftains from the tribes of Apartis, followed Medorian into the hall, two of them dragging sacks behind them.
"What do you want?" said Aegenuis, lowering his head again, trying to ignore the ache inside it. "Close the door, it's too bright."
"These were found in an abandoned cart on the road to Alassan," said Medorian.
The two laden chieftains came forward with their burdens and placed the sacks before the empty fire pit. Another closed the doors, plunging the hall into gloom.
Aegenuis roused himself from the chair and went to the sacks.
"Look inside," said Medorian.
Pulling the cord tie on the closest sack, Aegenuis heaved up the bag to spill the contents onto the dusty floor. Heads bounced and rolled over the flags, causing the king to drop the sack and take two steps back. He leaned closer and saw that each had been branded on the forehead with the face of Askhos. In the dim light, he recognised some of the rotting faces.
"That's Serbicuis," he said, shocked by the sight. He looked at his son, who was nodding with a sour expression. "And Lassiun, and Ulghan. How many?"
"Eighteen chieftains," said Medorian. "Seven from Magilnada, the others from Free Country and the Altes Hills. Executed by the Askhans."
"I can see that!" snapped Aegenuis. "Do you know what this means?"
"That the Askhans are a bunch of sword-happy arseholes?" suggested Medorian.
"That Magilnada has fallen," replied the king. Medorian's smirk faded. "The new Askhan invasion, it's possible because they've taken Magilnada. Probably worse, judging by these poor bastards."
"Why did they leave them on the road?" asked Aghali, one of the tribal leaders. The short, scrawny man prodded the unopened sack with his foot. "Seems an odd thing to drop off the back of a cart."
"They were left for us to find, you idiot," said Med
orian. "They're trying to intimidate us."
"They're not trying, they're succeeding," said Aegenuis, sitting himself on the bench alongside the main table. "It's not just chance that they left them here. They know where I am."
"Then why haven't they attacked?" This was from another chieftain, called Lastabruis. "These were found not more than a morning's walk away."
"Why do they have to attack?" said Aegenuis. "The whole point of being in this shithole is so that the Askhans do not know where we are. I wonder how many of the other armies have been discovered. Fuck, for all I know, everybody else is dead. There's no reason to attack, they don't think us a threat."
"That's where we prove them wrong," said Medorian, putting a foot up on the bench beside his father and leaning over him. "I've sent riders out to Caraghlin, Tanna, Gathluis, and a few others. With our warriors, that's nearly fifty thousand. They're going to meet us at the Hadric Mounds in twenty days."