Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

  “Have this delivered to General Arbak,” he said. “And do it now.” The man hurried away again and Sandaray lay back on his cot. He was feeling light headed again. He sipped the milk. It was really quite pleasant.

  Perhaps he could go home soon. If Alwain abandoned the siege perhaps the war would end. Perhaps not. He closed his eyes. That was all above his head. Now he felt tired. He needed to sleep.

  *

  Cain looked out at the carnage. Alwain’s men had withdrawn but there were hundreds of wounded men still on the field. He had won, but it didn’t feel that way. When he looked the other way, he could see the lines of bodies in the street below and the walls were still littered with the dead. He had lost hundreds.

  Men were already working on the damaged weights, but he watched for a sign from Alwain’s camp. There was a tradition in warfare, a rule that allowed each side to collect their wounded and dead. To trigger the truce Alwain should light a fire. It was his duty as the attacker to do this, but time passed and no fire was lit. There was activity, though. Cain could see men moving in the camp. They were certainly up to something.

  “Catto, get the archers forwards. I want them on the walls,” he said.

  Catto raised an eyebrow, but this time he didn’t ask a question. He went off to pass the order.

  The archers came, Catto with them. It took minutes and still there was no sign from Alwain’s camp. Cain looked over the wall again at the wounded and dying men. Anyone who could walk was gone. What remained were the worst cases, those that needed help most urgently. Could it be a trap? Cain failed to see how.

  “Send the orderlies out,” Cain said. “No more than fifty, and I want a hundred men on the gate, ready to close it at a moment’s notice.”

  The gates opened and the orderlies came out carrying stretchers. They looked nervous and a lot of them glanced up at the walls and the tower where Cain stood.

  “Sir, there’s a message.”

  An out-of-breath orderly was standing next to Catto, a crumpled paper in his hand. Cain took the paper and opened it. The writing was so bad that he had trouble reading it. There was a smear of blood as well.

  To General Arbak from Colonel Sandaray, it said. You have in your orderly hall one Major Fargas, second of Fetherhill’s regiment. He is delirious, but believes that Alwain will march west tomorrow or the day after. He cites problems at Fetherhill and other places. Suggests the regiments will rebel if Alwain does not abandon Bas Erinor. I believe this to be true.

  Cain read it twice. He looked out over the wall again at the orderlies. They were working now, picking up those they thought could be saved, carrying them back within the walls.

  It made sense. If Alwain was abandoning his camp he would not want hundreds of seriously wounded men in his care. He was leaving that to Cain, hoping, perhaps, that so many enemies in his care would keep him here at Bas Erinor.

  Cain would oblige. He would treat the men as though they were his own, which in a sense they were. He was as Avilian as any of them. Those that regained health enough to be a threat would be guarded, but he didn’t need to stay in Bas Erinor for that.

  He saw Caster on the wall. The sword master had removed his helmet and was talking to someone. The man he was talking to looked familiar. He looked like a ghost from the past.

  63 Great Howe

  Jerac Fane stood alone in the night and looked up at the stars. He liked the stars. They seemed clean and uncomplicated, and looking at them made him feel the same way, sometimes. The illusion soon passed. It always did.

  He was sitting at the base of Great Howe. Above him in the castle there were a couple of hundred men who owed him their obedience, but tonight they were useless to him. They didn’t even know he was here. Fane had led his main force, some two thousand men, to Red Hill. He had left them there with instructions to lay siege to the place, to let nobody in or out. That was enough for now. Fane had more important things to do.

  Great Howe was a large mound, a rounded hillock of stone and earth, and perhaps it was something else. Tonight he would discover if the rumour was true. He stood, rolled up his sleeves, and began to climb.

  It was not an easy thing to climb Great Howe – easy enough for a Farheim, he supposed, but Fane would have to climb it many times, to put a hand or foot on every square yard of the thing to see if there was, indeed, anything in that square yard. He was looking for a door, a hidden hole, that would allow him access to the tunnels he supposed lay beyond.

  Only he could do it. The entrance would only open for a Farheim, could only be held open by one of his kind.

  He climbed. It was easier to go up, he found. His Farheim strength made small handholds seem like ladder rungs, but on the way down he was constantly arresting his body’s desire to fall, and he tended to descend too quickly.

  On his third climb back down, he fell. He was about half way down and the slope steepened. His fingers missed a hold and suddenly he was tumbling through air.

  It was annoying, but it didn’t matter. He broke an arm, but it healed almost at once. The pain was sharp, and a moment later he was on his feet again inspecting his torn jacket. He started climbing again.

  The hours passed. Fane didn’t tire, but he was beginning to believe that he was wasting his time when he fell for a second time. This time he was a mere fifteen feet from the ground, and he landed, cat-like, on hands and feet.

  Had he missed his handhold? Again? He had the distinct impression that there hadn’t been a handhold to miss. He had grasped at air. His fingers had closed on nothingness. He stood and looked up. Even in starlight he could see the rough surface of Great Howe reaching up to the castle walls above. It looked perfectly natural, but then it was supposed to look that way.

  He climbed again, this time taking care, moving one limb at a time so that he always had three firm points to support him. A few moves up the climb and his hand found air again. He paused and stared. His hand was gone. He could see his arm, his wrist, and then there was a rock face. He pushed further in and his arm vanished up to the elbow. He waved it about and discovered that the gap was about three feet wide and higher than he could reach.

  He moved up, hauled himself over the lip of the thing and quite suddenly the night was gone. He was lying in a chamber, bathed in warm light before a silver door that he had just passed through.

  Fane knew this place. He had been here a century ago. He remembered the doors, the light, the high ceiling. He scrambled to his feet and looked around.

  Some things had changed.

  The far side of the room was piled high with sacks and large earthenware jars. The dust of the floor had a busy commerce written upon it, the sign of hundreds of feet coming and going, and mostly to another of the silver doors.

  That had to be it.

  Cain and Sheyani, with whom he had discovered these hidden ways, were in Bas Erinor. They were using the Farheim Roads to supply the city. Who else could it be? Fane tried to remember. Cain and Sheyani were both Farheim, so were Skal and Hestia. Caster, and Narak, perhaps. He guessed that the god-mage could also access these places, but of all those he had nothing to fear. At some stage they had all been friends of one degree or another.

  He studied the floor again. There was no doubt that one door dominated the foot traffic, though it seemed that over half of them were in use. How could so many pass through a way that was open only to Farheim?

  That was a question that Cain could answer, and if Fane was right then that busy door would lead through to the city.

  He took a small stone from his pocket and used it to scratch a mark on the wall next to the door that led to Great Howe. He drew his blade. He was almost certain that the door he was about to step through would take him home to Bas Erinor, but almost wasn’t enough.

  He stepped through.

  64 Talking

  The dragon’s pavilion seemed smaller in daylight. The dragon seemed bigger. Torgaris dominated the space, his jet scales glistened and when he moved, they made a wa
terfall of sliding light.

  Kenton had brought a small entourage. He’d brought a chair, too, and cushions. He sat to one side of the dragon and conversed with his advisors, one of whom was unquestionably a soldier. He did his best to ignore Gayne and Midallo.

  They had come alone, and plainly dressed. They looked like beggars in comparison to Kenton’s people. Gayne had not even brought a sword.

  Callista was there. She was sitting on the edge of a small fountain, trailing her hand in the water. The distance between her seat and Kenton’s suggested that they had not been talking. That was good.

  “Councillor Gayne,” she said, rising. “And Councillor Midallo, I believe. You are welcome here.” She smiled, and gestured with one hand. Two comfortable chairs appeared out of nowhere. “Please be seated,” she said.

  It was as impressive a levelling of the field as Gayne had seen, a casual gesture of overwhelming power. It killed all talk on the other side.

  “Thank you, Eran,” Gayne said. Midallo just stared. Gayne took his seat, crossed his legs and leaned back. Midallo prodded the seat a few times before sitting down, and even then he perched uneasily on the edge.

  “We are here to speak,” Callista said. “Who would like to begin?”

  “Let Duke Kenton speak,” Gayne said. “He was first to accept this meeting. Let him say what he wants.”

  Kenton looked at the soldier standing next to him and it was the soldier, not Kenton, who spoke.

  “We require that the city acknowledge the authority of King Kenton, that they recognise him as monarch of all Afael.”

  Gayne laughed, deliberately.

  “No,” he said. “We have fought for our freedom and we will keep it.”

  Kenton didn’t move, didn’t blink. He stared at Gayne.

  “Militarily,” the soldier said. “You are at a disadvantage…”

  “Militarily,” Gayne interrupted, “it is a stalemate. You do not have the men to force the walls and we do not have the men to break the siege. In addition, you have a harvest to gather in. We can at least trade for what we need.”

  “We offer concessions,” the soldier said.

  “Name them.”

  “You may keep some of your laws. The council will remain, its future rulings subject to the King’s approval. There will be a general amnesty for the city.”

  “Some of our laws?”

  “There are many. It will have to be negotiated.”

  From Kenton’s point of view it was a very fair offer. He was willing to leave them with the illusion of self-rule – perhaps more than that. He was willing to let bygones be bygones. But for Gayne it was not enough. He looked at Midallo.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Midallo shrugged. “It seems we get more than we lose,” he said.

  Gayne laughed. “I’ll bet your wife never lets you near the market, Midallo.” He turned back to Kenton.

  “I will tell you what we want,” he said. “Duke Kenton will acknowledge the sovereignty of Afael city. He will swear never to mount another attack on us. He will cede to us all the lands once ruled by Duke Falini and we will recognise his claim to the lands formerly held by Anjasari.”

  “You are cutting the kingdom in two!” the soldier protested.

  “The kingdom is gone, Duke Kenton,” Gayne said. “It ceased to exist when Falini killed Casraes.

  Kenton put his hand on the soldier’s arm, and the man sat down.

  “You do not really expect us to divide the kingdom,” he said.

  “We need land,” Gayne said. “We need food and land to grow it.”

  “We will admit that the lands are in dispute,” Kenton said. “But we will not cede half the kingdom to you. If it is agreeable, we will guarantee a supply of food to the city. I do not want any of my people to starve.”

  Gayne had an urge to point out that the citizens of Afael City were no longer Kenton’s people, had, in fact, never been, but he resisted. Keeping those hopes alive might be important.

  Gayne looked at Torgaris. “You will say if he is lying?” he asked.

  “I will,” the dragon replied.

  “The offer of food is welcome,” Gayne said, turning back to Kenton. “But it is not acceptable to have your soldiers control everything. We require a portion of land around the city to be under our control.”

  “Ten miles,” Kenton said.

  “That’s less than a day’s march. Fifty.”

  “That would include two towns and a dozen villages,” Kenton said.

  “They are naturally within the city’s orbit. I see no problem.”

  The Duke stroked his chin. He glanced up at the soldier and got a shrug in return. “I do not object to the principle of a hinterland,” he said. “But the actual line of the boundary will have to be more carefully set, and we do not accept it as a permanent division of the land.”

  Gayne nodded. He couldn’t expect more, and the principle that this was a temporary agreement, a truce rather than a treaty, was becoming established on both sides. They already had the basis for a negotiation here. A truce, space to move, the withdrawal of the bulk of Kenton’s army. That was all he’d wanted when he came here.

  “And we require access to the port of Afael,” Kenton said.

  An interesting request. Kenton wanted to be able to trade and there was no comparable port in the kingdom. It revealed another weakness in the Duke’s position. In the short term he could do without a port. In the long term he could develop another, but in those middling years he needed Afael City and its docks.

  “I have no objection,” Gayne said. “But there will have to be limits on numbers, and taxes, of course.”

  One of the men behind Kenton leaned forwards and whispered something in his ear. The Duke nodded.

  “A half tithe is acceptable,” Kenton said. “No more.”

  They had expected that. A twentieth part of everything shipped through the port was fair. Gayne could have pushed for more, but there was no point now. He was building the impression that he was a reasonable man, a man that Kenton could do business with.

  “A half tithe it is,” he agreed. And now the most important part. “And you will agree to remove your forces from our agreed lands for a period of one year,” he said. A year from today Kenton’s people would be beginning next year’s harvest. It meant that they could not really attack until the winter, or, more realistically, until the spring sowing was done. It would give the city eighteen months of peace, a year and a half to prepare.

  Both Kenton and his soldier understood this, but apparently, they had expected it. They exchanged a glance.

  “Agreed,” said Kenton.

  That was it. For Gayne the job was done. He had what he wanted. He turned to Midallo again. “Are you satisfied, Councillor Midallo, or is there any other point you wish to raise?”

  Midallo looked around the pavilion. Gayne had the distinct impression that he was still awed by the building, the dragon, the god-mage and the Duke. It was not surprising.

  “The dragon guarantees that Duke Kenton speaks the truth?” he asked.

  “I do,” Torgaris said. “Remarkably, nobody here has tried to deceive anyone else.”

  “And each party will be held to the letter of the agreement,” Callista said.

  “The agreement is not yet made,” Kenton said. “There are details to work through.”

  “Well, then,” Midallo said. “As far as it goes, I am satisfied.”

  The rest, as Kenton had said, was detail. Gayne looked at Callista. She seemed pleased. He tried to imagine a time when he would have to kill her as Mordo had predicted, but his mind shied away from the idea. Surely there would be some other way? They could talk, just like they were talking here. An agreement of some kind could be reached.

  “Now we need a map,” he said.

  65 Home

  It’s not easy to hide over a hundred men, especially when they came with a dozen wagons, a handful of horses and more oxen than he cared to coun
t.

  Major Tamarak had put them in a small wood. But he knew he couldn’t keep them there for long. They were home. Some of the men had already passed villages and towns that sheltered their kin. Many more were scant miles from their loved ones, but he was sitting behind a bush looking at the reason he had to hold them back.

  There were thousands of men out there. Fetherhill had become something alien. The green fields were now a city of tents, the clear skies were clouded with the smoke of five hundred fires, the land was churned to mud and no red and gold banner flew from the top of the keep. It would be suicide to approach the castle.

  Lieutenant Ingris lay beside him on the grass. The young man had become his second because Captain Dunst had only one leg and couldn’t do the job. Dunst resented that, but he understood.

  “What do you think, Ingris?”

  “Somewhere between five and seven thousand, sir,” Ingris said in a commendably unflustered voice.

  “Options?”

  Ingris pursed his lips. “We could harry them, but I don’t see the point. If they come looking for us, they’ll find us. We can’t win, even if they’re a bunch of peasants with rusty hoes.”

  Tamarak looked at the straight lines of the camp, at the units of men marching on the fields to the north. They looked better than that. They looked like soldiers – green, surely, but someone down there knew their business.

  “Stay hidden, then?” Tamarak asked.

  “Or disband, sir.”

  “Perhaps, but those men down there have families in the same towns and villages as our men. They’d find out. They might want to settle accounts.”

  Ingris looked uncomfortable. It had been bad enough over the last few years. Resentment against Lord Fetherhill had been growing, and now it was hugely manifest. They had all been aware of it. One of the officers had resigned his commission before the campaign against the king. He could be down there now, helping the enemy.

  But Tamarak had trouble thinking of them as the enemy. These were Fetherhill’s people, and by the size of the force a good proportion of its menfolk. Had Lord Fetherhill really got it that wrong?