by Greg Curtis
She wasn't nimble enough, fit enough or quick enough to keep ahead of Valia for long. She had no weapon and if she had she could never have stood against a trained swords-woman with it. But she still had one advantage that Valia didn't know about. And as she raced for the back of the wagon while Valia came racing for the front from the other side, she used it.
It was just an impulse, a thought given to the horses that the white haired woman was a wolf, but it worked perfectly. They reared up, snorted and lashed out with their hooves just as she passed in front of them, and Valia was sent flying when a couple of them connected.
She didn't cry out – she was too well trained for that – but April knew she was hurt as she lay on the grass. And though she got up only a couple of heartbeats later, it was clear some of the fight had been knocked out of her. Being kicked by a horse hurt. Best of all she had been slowed and April could see her limping. But though she was limping April had to remember one of the other lessons Kyriel had taught her. Never trust an opponent to tell you the truth of herself.
Whether she was genuinely slowed or simply pretending to be, that still gave April the time she needed to get a little further away. And to call for reinforcements. And while she could see men in armour running for her, she knew they would be too slow. It was the dogs that had followed the army that she needed. Another quick command had half a dozen of them running flat out for Valia, baying for her blood, and her would be killer had to turn to face them hurriedly.
The battle was over.
That came as a shock to April. That she had won her first ever battle. But as she saw Valia standing there, preparing to defend herself against the pack, she knew she had. Valia was no longer coming after her. She was just trying to save her skin.
April didn't have the dogs attack her. She had them instead surround Valia, growling and snarling but not leaping on her as they should. That was enough. And by the time the soldiers had arrived and had their weapons out, April knew it was time to end it.
“Throw your sword away Valia!”
Pretending a confidence she didn't have April came out from behind the wagon and ordered her to surrender. For some reason her voice wasn't even quavering as she had expected it to when she said it.
“Never!” Valia screamed at her. “No one from House Mystral ever surrenders!”
And to prove what she was saying she lunged at the dog directly in front of her. She missed as the dog dodged the blade with its four footed agility, and then got bitten on the back of the calf by one of the dogs behind her for her trouble.
“Really? I would think you would be overwhelmingly grateful to leave that foul house behind like your sister.”
“Kyriel ran away! She betrayed the house!”
Valia's voice became shrill as she spun on her heels, trying desperately to keep the dogs away from her. Blood was trickling down her leg. Meanwhile the soldiers had arrived and were standing a little distance away, staring. Wondering what they were supposed to do.
“Your father betrayed the house. He betrayed his wife by executing her. A truly vile crime!”
“He had no choice!”
“He had every choice!” April shouted at her. She was angered by the daughter's defence of her father's evil. Maybe she had been in the temple too long, but she could not stand to hear such lies. “He could have loved her. He could have protected her. At the very least he didn’t have to murder her! What kind of twisted version of honour is that?”
“He was loyal to the house!”
“Instead he betrayed his duty as a husband and father. Don't you understand that family always comes first?”
Valia didn't answer her, continuing to spin around on her heels, waiting for the first dog to attack.
“And he murdered your sister, betraying his duty as a father.” April continued her prosecution.
“Kyriel killed her!”
“Kyriel just ran away. She only wanted to live. She had no idea that your father would sacrifice her younger sister in her place. And now she's tormented by guilt for that. She thinks it was a mistake. It was your father’s mistake though. A miserable worm like that – he should never have been born.”
“Oh for goodness sake!”
Marcus' voice suddenly interrupted them and April looked around to see him standing there, just in front of Valia. And then he took two quick steps toward her, grabbed her sword arm and yanked it aside, and then punched her firmly on the nose.
Valia flew backwards before falling down on her back, dropping her sword as she did so. After that she just lay there unmoving, blood pouring from her nose. She had been knocked out. It was then that April knew that it was over. The woman would not bother them again.
“By the Seven someone get some manacles for this woman and the rest of you return to your posts! We have a war to fight!”
“Are you all right baby?” Marcus turned to smile at her.
“I'm fine.” April smiled back at him, suddenly overwhelmingly happy to have such a wonderful brother. And suddenly happy too. It might be foolishness but she felt some renewed confidence in Marcus. In his ability to win this war and survive it as well. He was every inch the Bull as people called him. Proud and strong. Eternally victorious. The sunshine finally seemed right again.
“Good. We'll shackle this fool woman and you can bring her to Tyrel. And then we can finally end this damned war.
Chapter Fifty Seven
Edouard stood in the dungeon under the castle and wished he was anywhere else but there. It was a place that he had never wanted to come back to. But it was a place he had to be. Because it was here – or actually in the castle above – that he knew Vesar would be. And if he could kill him then the war would hopefully go a lot more smoothly. It was here too that he hoped to find Kyriel. If she was still alive. If she'd been captured and not killed he guessed Vesar would have imprisoned her here. And if she'd survived and was free she'd probably also come here with the same idea as him. Kill Vesar and end the war quickly.
He was running out of hope though. Hope that she was alive or that if she was he would find her. He was running out of everything. Edouard was cold and tired. More than tired. At some point he had gone through exhaustion and come out the other side only to discover it was even worse. But by then an endless number of days had seemed to go by while he'd waded through the sewers. It had taken everything from him.
His life had become one of snatching moments of sleep here and there coupled with hunger and fear. It was the fear that kept him going. But even it couldn't power him forever. Sooner or later he feared he was going to be caught. He would collapse somewhere he shouldn't, and the veiled soldiers would catch him. They wouldn't lock him up. He knew that. If they caught him they would kill him immediately and with extreme malice. They had good reason to want him dead.
Still, it was necessary. He had emptied out dozens of makeshift prisons over the previous days. Every one that he could find and reach from the sewers. And while there were likely hundreds more scattered around Theria, he knew that none of them would be large. The rock gnomes had settled on using lots of smaller houses as prisons for some reason, each with only a few guards.
This dungeon however, wasn't one of them. It was empty. It probably hadn't been used since his previous escape, no doubt owing to the tunnel leading straight out of it into the sewers and freedom beyond. It wouldn't have been very secure. Standing there in the darkness with the only light coming from the window in the main door, Edouard was completely alone. But he wasn't surprised by that. Disappointed perhaps, but not surprised. It wasn't the first time he had been disappointed.
Edouard had hoped that the typhoon gate would be another large prison filled with people needing rescue. But it hadn't turned out that way. When he'd finally reached the temple he’d found nothing. No temple being built, no gate, no nothing. Just a huge flat expanse of rubble piles and torn up ground. Simon's sabotage had completely destroyed it and despite all their fears the rock gnomes hadn't started re
building it.
When he'd seen it, peering out at it from the broken window of a nearby shop, Edouard had finally realised why the rock gnomes were keeping the people locked up. It was all they could do for the moment. They couldn't build their typhoon gate anymore. Not there. Not without hundreds or thousands of labourers and years of work. The ground was little more than a crater and there were no intact building supplies. Even the stone blocks weren't blocks any more. Vesar's dreams had died almost completely with that explosion.
His plans had presumably changed with the temple's destruction. Before then he had presumably planned on completing the temple and then using it to build his armies of demon machines while wiping out all those with magic who could oppose him. It would have been a decisive victory for him. Now, instead of building the temple, he had to concentrate on winning the war first with whatever resources he could lay his hands on. If he won, then and only then, could he start regrouping. Bringing in more people to work for him – though the surrounding lands were now deserted. Rebuilding some of the city's infrastructure and in particular restoring food and water to the people. Only then could he start work on the temple again.
It was a strange thing to realise, but even though he'd only done it out of spite, anger and the need to cover his escape, Simon had actually saved Therion when he'd blown the temple up. Of course, he had also undoubtedly killed hundreds or thousands of people and destroyed half the city in doing so. And now he was eternally beyond the ability of anyone to exact revenge upon.
So Vesar had had the civilians locked away in whatever prisons he could find for them. He hadn't fed them well if at all since then for the simple reason that he couldn't. The granaries had been destroyed and most of the other food stores as well. He had put every effort he had into rebuilding the walls, however crudely. Then he had prepared for the siege and the subsequent attack. An attack that Edouard was certain had to be coming today.
The south west wall was almost completely down. It was just rubble and the occasional isolated section of wall for as far as the eye could see. And with it and the ramparts behind it gone, the defenders were huddled in small encampments among the buildings behind it, preparing to face the assault of ten thousand men. Their chances seemed poor. They were badly outnumbered. Marcus had ten thousand soldiers. Edouard would have guessed that there were only two thousand rock gnomes left. How many of the demon machines Vesar could add to their numbers he didn't know. But he was sure it wouldn't be enough.
If they'd had the walls the defenders could have withstood the assault. But they were gone and the cannon were still firing. Breaking down the rubble so that it could be more easily scaled by the men coming through; knocking down houses, buildings and anything else inside the city that they could use as defensive positions. There weren't many left.
The rock gnomes' only hope now lay in Vesar. In his creating another portal and bringing another army through. Which was why he had to die – if Edouard could find him.
Edouard had very little time. If he was going to find and kill Vesar, he probably only had a matter of hours at most. It was early morning, the sun was barely up, and Edouard couldn't imagine that Marcus would keep pounding the walls beyond midday. He also had to contend with the fact that the Cabal wizard probably still had a stone of silence somewhere in the castle above, which was why the first thing he had done was clean and reload his pistols. He couldn't feel any drain or restriction on his magic yet. But he wanted to be prepared if and when it happened.
Once he was ready – or as ready as he could be – Edouard headed for the main door to the dungeon, acutely aware that it was the same door he had once been desperate to walk through but couldn't. This time however, there was no gaoler sitting at a table in the centre of the room and no soldiers stationed outside it. So, after listening very carefully at the door, he opened it and headed into the hallway beyond and then up the stairs.
Two flights later he found himself on the landing just to the side of the main hall of the castle barracks. It was there that those of the royal guard assigned to security detail in the castle would stay. And by a twist of fate it was the only barracks in the city that was still intact. The mammoths so long ago had destroyed most of the rest.
Save for two guards left there to watch over things, the hall was empty. The rest he assumed were out there somewhere in the city, preparing to meet Marcus' army head on. These two didn't pose much of a threat to Edouard as they were both staring out of the window and into the courtyard beyond. It was there he guessed that they expected trouble to come from. They fell to his cutting finger of fire in seconds without ever knowing what had happened, and the hall was his a moment later.
Seconds later he walked cautiously out into the barracks hall, feeling distinctly uncomfortable at being out in the open in such a big space. He hated the sewers. The feel of the dark, foetid water on his skin. The stench, and the ever-present worry about disease. But at least in them he felt safe. Protected by heavy stone walls. And most of all, alone. Here anyone could be watching him.
Above him he knew were the bed chambers in which other royal guards might even now be resting. Behind him were the kitchens and dining hall where they could be eating – assuming there was any food left in the city. But he couldn't have just stayed on the landing at the top of the dungeon stairs forever. It would have been easier if he could have listened for the sound of the soldiers around him, but any chance of that was drowned out by the thunder of the cannon as they tore down the distant walls. They were the song of the city these days.
Edouard walked out across the large wooden floor and despite his fears no one came running down from above or from the back rooms. He crossed the room without incident, but stopped before he reached the hallway at the far end, his attention caught by the two dead guards. They didn't have their veils on. Then again, why would they in their own barracks?
He'd been told what they looked like of course. He'd heard the stories. And he'd seen them as well. They weren't all wearing veils these days. But this was the first time he'd seen them in daylight at close range, and he found himself fascinated. It wasn't the tusks or the wrinkles though that got to him. Trolls were far uglier and more frightening and he'd seen them up close very recently. Too close. The rock gnomes were different. It was the strange pallor of their skins. They weren't pale as the stories had said. They were grey. The colour of stone. What sort of people had grey skin? There was something deeply disturbing in that.
But he couldn't just stand and stare. The castle lay ahead, and somewhere within it he assumed, Vesar. So he left them and headed across to the hallway. Then, after again checking carefully, he started down it.
It was a nerve wrecking journey. On one side of the hallway were the huge windows looking out into the courtyard, and he had to check each of them before walking by to make sure there were no more veiled soldiers there. On the other side were doorways leading to rooms he'd never even known existed. As he passed each one he had to open them a crack and peek inside. It would be bad if soldiers were on the other side waiting to come rushing out.
They turned out to be meeting rooms and private quarters for the most part. Places where the senior officers of the royal guards presumably lived and worked. They were also empty. But one thing did surprise him about them; the dust. These rooms had obviously not been used or cleaned since the coup.
Another thing caught him by surprise too, but not until he risked venturing into some of them and peering out of the windows. What he saw through them transfixed him with horror. Beyond them lay the royal gardens. The entire rear of the castle was a park and orchard in which the king and his family might play and the servants might tend to the trees and gather food for the royal table. But not anymore.
The trees had been cut down – he couldn't even begin to imagine why – and in their place had been planted poles. Hundreds, maybe thousands of poles, and on each one of them was a head. This was the field of heads he'd heard stories of.
It
was a truly gruesome spectacle. And doubtless it had to look much worse from on high. But that was where it was meant to be viewed from he guessed. Because the royal bed chambers were at the back of the castle, several stories up, and he remembered hearing that they had a huge balcony overlooking the gardens. From there Edouard guessed, Simon had greeted each new day as king, looking down over his kingdom. Because this was actually his brother's doing, not Vesar's.
Edouard knew that because he had been told of Simon's reign by the survivors. The relentless cycle of executions. The hangings and beheadings of anyone who had either failed him or opposed him. But until just then those had all been stories. Suddenly they were real. So real that he could almost reach out and touch them.
What sort of insanity could have possessed his brother? What utter lunacy? A garden of heads! The heads of other nobles, people he had grown up with. People he had known all his life. The heads of soldiers too. Those whose task it had been to protect the king and the kingdom.