He got himself all sorted for duty. Senesa, whom he’d promoted to his second-in-command, bawled at the men to get a move on. The squad trooped out into the Court of Spices to form up. Twenty men, women and children, bright their armour, bright their faces, bright the swords they held. Sleek look to them, he thought proudly, glossy hair and faces of soldiers well-fed and well-trained. The new ones, the Sorlostians and the Immish lads that had started arriving to sign up, they had a nice dash to them; the old hands were rock solid, all of them. The Court of Spices itself had seen better days, even before the Army of Amrath had sacked it. They had to form up in neat rows around gaping holes in the paving stones and random piles of rubble and ash; from the smell, there were still some bodies under there somewhere. But the remaining buildings were pretty fine and grand, as befitted a spice market. Lots of carved flowers, gilded frescoes of forests exploding with beasts and birds. Cinnamon trees, clove trees, creeping ammalene vines, fields of purple saffron. They’d found a painting of Mr. Spice Merchant and Mrs. Spice Merchant and their two little spice merchants on a wall in their lodgings: looked at them sometimes, all of them, trying to remember if they’d killed them in the sack.
“Right, lads,” Tobias told his squad. “Get yourselves drawn up smart and listen.” More squads of Blades trooping in, forming up: point of pride, after a lifetime’s soldiering, after everything, that his lot were first in the square formed up every time. As is always the case with soldiers, they all somehow knew his history, Tobias the bastard-hard sellsword who’d once been squad com-mander to the king.
“Right, lads. You, Maran, yes, you, get that spear straight. I said straight. Gods and demons, boy.” The offender, a Sorlostian who dreamed of being a poet like his namesake [Maran: that’s the bloke who nods! Dirty poet Maran something, knew it would come back to me!], the offender Maran shuffled the spear shaft. “Right. Thank you, Maran. Right, lads. Lady Sabryya’s coming to inspect us all tomorrow, right, check we’re all ready and up to scratch. So we’re going to show her how well we’re up to scratch.” Damned sight more pleasing on the eye as a commander than old Skie, was Lady Sabryya. And damned good at her job. Tobias gestured at a fresco behind him. “Then, if she’s satisfied, which she will be, a little bird told me the Blades are going to be in the advance guard. Maun, lads. They say the air there positively smells of spices. Diamonds big as your fist lying about in the earth to be gathered up. The women go about topless. Soon as the rest of the Immish troops come in, we’re marching. And us lot, the Winged Blades, we’re going to be right in at the front for the kill.”
A cheer from his squad. The other squads forming up cheered with them.
They had roll call, inspection, paraded around the Court of Spices up the Street of Bones and Longing around down the Gold Quarter and Fair Flowers back through Bird Street to where they began. Lots of cheering from the six and a half surviving civilian inhabitants of Sorlost.
“Fancy a beer?” Tobias asked Clews. He’d arranged to meet Rovi and Naillil in that wine shop the Star. It was still something of a shambles (sic), a month, a whole frigging month, and the new owners still hadn’t got the door fixed, but it had been the first wine shop to start selling proper Immish beer. The one with the yellow flowers over the door sold an approximation of that White Isles herby stuff. Best avoided any time of day or night. “His throbbing spear, his throbbing blade, Whole cities lie wet at his feet, Death! Death! just bloody listen to yourselves, lads, it isn’t the cities that are gagging to have something thrust into them here, I think maybe, Death!”
“I’m meeting Carinos later,” Clews said. “I’ll come for a bit. Carinos is going to come with me, he says, when we march. Follow the army. We’ve talked about it.”
“That’s great, Clews, lad. I’m happy for you.” Really was. They wandered on down a wide street that had been over half cleared of rubble, so the death stink here wasn’t quite so bad. A wide detour to avoid the Court of the Broken Knife that stank worse than anywhere else in Irlast. Cleared and cleaned, the flagstones scoured with sulphur, but nothing could get the smell out. The statue of the king there… And the dead horse hung up there wasn’t really adding to the atmosphere in the place. Took the long route past the House of Glass, where the insanely rich inhabitants burned incense day and night. The square outside its gates must be the most popular gathering place in Sorlost.
“You know,” Clews said, “Carinos has got a sister. Widowed. He and I were wondering…”
The wine shop was crowded. Rovi was there already, had found a table at the back. Hadn’t bought a drink, the miserly bugger. Tobias bought a jug of Immish Gold and a plate of candied apples. Poured out three cups.
“To the king,” Clews said, raising his cup. People said it before they fucked someone, now. People said it as they came fucking someone. Women said it as they gave birth.
“To the king,” said Rovi in his dead rasping voice.
“To the king. Yeah.” Closed his eyes to savour the taste. Best beer in the bloody world. They’d be marching on Immish soon enough, he’d reckon, go through Maun and Medana like through butter and then on up. Immish! Turain, for vengeance! Polle Island! Those little lumps of rock off the Medana coast! Ae-Beyond-the-Waters, even, maybe, and he’d finally get to see what Alxine’s homeland had looked like and whether it really existed and whether they really did worship a giant man-eating squid thing. All those big trees, in the Forest of Maun, for making boats. The stars! The moon! The sun!
“You met her, then? Carinos’s sister? When you say widowed . . . she got kids?”
Naillil came into the wine shop, looked around, she had this look on her face like she was hoping so desperately he was there and so on edge that he’d not have turned up. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement.
“You heard?” said Naillil. She waved away Tobias trying to pour her a drink. “Lenae told me this morning.” Naillil bent her head closer. “Not common knowledge outside the court yet. You have to promise you won’t tell. But… the king’s regent in Illyr, Lord Stanis—”
“Lord Stansel,” said Tobias.
“Lord Stansel, yes. Whatever he’s called. There are letters from him. Here, in Sorlost. Chief Secretary Gallus had them.” Listen to her, Tobias thought. Chief Secretary Gallus! Friends with one of the queen’s women, thinks she’s someone herself. Where’s that rough clever woman who cursed him for killing children? “Lord Stansel was conspiring against the king,” Naillil said with a breath. “Plotting with Lord Erith to kill the king. Remember Lord Erith? In Arunmen? A year, at least, it had been going on.”
Exchanged glances with Rovi. Had to laugh. All the boy’s dear beloved friends. Anyone left in Irlast who hasn’t shafted him or been shafted by him—come and line up.
“The king sent soldiers to kill Lord Stansel,” said Naillil. “But…” She lowered her voice, stared at them wide-eyed. “A messenger arrived last night. The fortress collapsed. Ethalden, the king’s tower. The whole top of it collapsed, killed him.” She sat back, looked at them in triumph. “The tower collapsed on him. Lord Stansel was plotting against the king with Lord Erith, and the king’s very fortress fell on him. Crushed him to dust. Not a single bone of him was left intact.”
!!!!!!
“Fuck,” said Tobias.
“Fuck,” said Clews.
“It’s true,” said Naillil.
Rovi, who had fought against the king in Illyr in the ruins of the previous fortress of Ethalden, and who should have died there, gave a dead smile, coughed his dead laugh.
“‘The Ansikanderakesis Amrakane punishes all who think to betray him,’” Naillil said. “That’s what Lenae says the court’s saying. The building itself knew. The monument to his glory, his triumph. The stones of it couldn’t bear the guilt.” She rolled her eyes. Kind of rolled her eyes. Kind of believed it.
The building was jerry-built on a swamp of rotting bodies. Boy can’t keep his tower up, fnarr fnarr, brewer’s droop wink wink nudge nudge etc etc. But even th
en he gets all the bloody luck.
“The men the king sent never got there to do it,” said Naillil. “It happened before the king knew anything. While the king was still in the mountains.”
Outside in the street someone started shouting something about glory and triumph and praise the king. News was obviously spreading. Several drinkers scurried out to see what was going on. Those that weren’t blatantly straining themselves to listen in to Naillil.
“Shame about the fortress, though,” said Clews after a while. “Always wanted to see that.”
“It’s all right,” said Naillil. “The king’s not upset at all. He was going to rebuild Ethalden anyway, Lenae says. Remake it all in the gold from the Summer Palace dome.” Naillil said, “They’ll be a big feast day, to celebrate. Lenae says Lord Vorley is in charge of arranging it.”
Eager smile from Clews: “The same Lord Vorley who organized the victory feast?”
It turned into quite a long session, as the news got out, what with everyone and his dog wanting to talk about it and have a drink to celebrate it and repeat it. Clews slopped off to meet his bloke already half-cut. Naillil was popular, seeing as she knew things. Sort of. “My friend who attends the queen.” “My friend, who heard it from a woman who heard it from a man who was there when the letters were shown to the king.” So in the end it was Tobias and Rovi, sitting in the back of the wine shop with an empty jug and an empty plate and four empty cups.
“I remember you,” said Rovi. “On the battlefield, in Illyr. In the ruins of the first fortress. Amrath’s fortress. The real one.”
The real one? No, I know what you mean, Rovi, man. “I didn’t fight at Ethalden, Rovi. You can’t remember me.”
Rovi said in his dead voice, “You never fought, no. I remember you there when we’d lost. You, and a woman with her face burned, and the other woman you were with, with the yellow hair. The one that wasn’t really a woman at all.”
“I was trying to get close to him myself,” said Rovi in his dead voice. “I’d sworn on my parents’ grave to kill him. I got close to him. In the end, right at the end, we’d lost, they were butchering us, his soldiers were drinking and celebrating, off guard. I crawled along in the ruins of Ethalden, a knife in my hands, I got really close to him. He was with his friends, they were all drunk and laughing, didn’t notice me. I could feel it, his death, inside me. I got so bloody close. And when I woke up, alive, I thought…”
Longest speech Tobias had ever heard from Rovi. Dry gasping dead voice cracked in Rovi’s throat. “Doesn’t matter,” Rovi said. “Not now. Four years,” Rovi said, “I’ve been following him. Hoping to kill him.” Rovi got up. Walked off, went out into the city night through the doorway that was still broken from the sack.
Parade the next morning, all dressed up with their armour polished to mirrors, red cloaks flapping in the dusty warm excuse for a breeze. All of them dozy and hungover, after celebrating all night that, uh, a big big tower had fallen down crushing some people to death. Lady Sabryya was understanding, didn’t push them, looked like she might have been up all night celebrating herself. I should imagine, Tobias thought, that a lot of people in the court were celebrating mighty hard last night that a traitor is dead. Had it confirmed, at the end, that their lot were going to be some of the first heading off south to Medana and Maun. Everyone cheered their heads off, then marched back to their lodgings to get some kip.
“Carinos is definitely coming,” said Clews happily. “Thinking about signing up, in fact.”
“I’m glad for you, Clews. Really I am.”
“His sister…”
“Never mind, lad. Don’t need a woman.” Tried to leer. “There’ll be those topless girls in Maun, yeah?”
“That’s almost certainly not true,” said Senesa.
“I made it up,” said Tobias. “Obviously. Your bloke know what he’ll need for a desert march, Clews? Whatever he says, tell him he’s wrong and tell him to bring what I say he’ll need. And we’ll need to start getting ourselves packed up.”
“Wait, wait,” said Senesa. “We’re leaving before the celebration feast? Say it’s not so.”
“The king doesn’t exactly stint on celebration feasts, does he? There’ll be another celebration feast soon, I should think. Lots of villages to sack.”
“Also your liver will thank you,” said Clews.
Thus three days later, at dawn, on the first day of the month called in Pernish Bahak, the month of the lilac, in Literan Sorerethae, the month of rest, the Winged Blades marched out of the Golden City of Sorlost, heading east into the rising sun. For many miles the ground they marched on was coated in bronze, the great bronze walls that had burned and melted at the king’s command. It ran like lace over the dun and yellow desert, the yellow-grey rocks and the scrubby yellow-brown thorns. Flashed in the waking light. In places, where the land rose up in hillocks, there were clumps of ragged delft grass putting out pink flowers, islands of living things. In the hollows, the bronze was deep and smooth like forest pools. At noon they stopped for a breather in the shadow of a big red rock. There was a stream, dirty with goat shit, and some little rocks to sit on. This early out, they had clean water with them, and cold meat, and bread. Pack horses for the equipment and the tents. If you looked back, a few black jagged ruins were still visible, just, on the horizon; then they went on over the slope of a hill and the city was gone. A village with fields and fruit trees, where the people came out to stare at them as though they had never before seen armed men. They pitched their tents by a waterhole, the first night out, there were thorn trees thick with berries that Senesa said were poisonous, the noise of insects was very loud. Big green beetles that blundered into the tents with a thudding almost like raindrops, fell to the ground in a buzz of wings. All around them the campfires of the Army of Amrath shone like the proverbial stars. Above them, the real stars blazed down. The Dragon’s Mouth. The White Lady. The Dog.
A good star, the Dog, Tobias thought.
“How long until we get there, you think?” Clews asked.
“Gods, I don’t know. Does it matter?”
They weren’t going to Maun. He’d noticed that five paces out of what had until recently been the Maskers’ Gate. They were going north-east. Towards Immish. His home country.
Be nice to die on home soil. Turn on the blokes around me, all unsuspecting and innocent, raise my sword, “Death to the invaders! Resist the murderer the right sick little bastard the King of Death!” chop chop hack stab and go down dead neat. How many years I got left in me…? A good soldier’s death and my bones left unburied in my native soil, gnawed on by my native dogs.
Or, on the more pessimistic side, I know my way around Alborn to loot it, know the lingo to ask people where their valuables are hidden, know some chaps in Alborn I’d be more than happy to see get whacked.
“When we get there, right, when we get there, I’m going to eat a really big big steak…”
“Topless women! Diamonds growing out of the ground!”
“Oh, I’m going to kill some people! Just watch me!”
“Oi, gods, watch it! Look where you’re waving that.”
Senesa was bollocking one of them for not cleaning the saucepan properly. One of the new lads from Sorlost had wandered off to look up at the stars, sad look on his face like he was missing his mum. Two of them were arguing over who cheated who first in a game of dice.
“Ten to one, right, sad-sack there starts blubbing for his comfort blanket by next Lanethday.”
“Lanethday? He’ll be blubbing for it by tomorrow night. And for gods’ sake don’t trust him to make a pot of tea. He can’t boil a pot of water, that one.”
I’m sorry, Raeta, Tobias thought. Look, Raeta, Landra, if you’re lucky, if you’re really lucky, I’ll die in the front rank in the first fight. Good quick clean man’s death. What you want and I want. For the best, I know. A bloody kindness, he thought, and almost wept.
“I’ll take last watch,” he told his lads. Cr
awled into his tent, went to sleep to the sound of them.
Chapter Sixty-One
Marith Altrersyr, Lord of the World, King of All Irlast, Conqueror of the Sekemleth Empire, Ansikanderakesis Amrakane, Amrath Returned to Us, King Ruin, King of Shadows, King of Dust, King of Death
His Empire
“Pethe birds,” said Thalia. “The brown ones.”
“Pethe. It means… What does it mean?”
Thalia thought. “I don’t know. That’s just their name. Pethe birds.”
Marith settled his head onto her shoulder. She stiffened, very briefly. Put her arm around him, began to stroke his hair.
“I thought you knew everything about Sorlost?” said Thalia.
“Not the wildlife. That’s not of much importance in war, really, is it?” He felt himself beginning to doze off. Delicious feeling of warm coming sleep tugging at him. Flowing into him. “‘In the garden, by the water, where the birds sing’… I’d always imagined they were prettier. White, maybe. Or gold. I’ll cancel that… whatever it was I had to do this afternoon. Stay here. Have a rest.”
Felt her stiffen again.
The House of Sacrifice Page 45