by Stephen Hunt
Duncan heard a rise of voices from the command post, and as he turned to see what had engaged their attention, he realized someone on the northern side had reached the same conclusion as Helrena about the time for subtleties. Two gates in the wall’s nearest side swung open, streams of cavalry sallying forth and forming a line almost as long as Midsburg’s outer ramparts, three horses deep, ridden by grey uniformed horsemen spattered by mud and dirt and blackened by gun smoke, soldiers drawing sabres and the horse-mounted carbines favoured by the cavalry. They advanced slowly through the northern trench works, reforming in the clear flat fields beyond the cheap wooden town burnt to ashes as a killing zone by the assembly.
‘Are they insane?’ spluttered Helrena, hurrying back towards the observation post with Duncan by her side.
‘The ancestors have blessed us,’ laughed Prince Gyal, pointing at the city. ‘These rebels are led by a traditionalist.’
Baron Machus practically bayed in triumph. ‘By the emperor’s blood, we shall show these fools our traditions, then.’
Prefect Colbert waved one of his runners forward. ‘Order the batteries to retrain their guns from the walls and the town … lower all batteries towards the farmland below.’
‘Belay that order. Your loyalist guns have as good as completed their task, Prefect,’ said Gyal. ‘You have duped our enemy into believing that this battle is the kind of work they are familiar with. But the rebels have never faced the emperor’s wrath before. Put down smoke in front of the battlements instead; let their cursed heavy rifles shoot blind for as long as your smoke grenades last.’
Colbert bowed. ‘It shall be as you command, Your Highness.’
Exactly as you command. Despite the fact that King Marcus and his loyalist forces were allied with Vandia, Duncan couldn’t help but despise the so-called ‘supreme commander’ of the Army of the Boles. A politician only risen to rank through his obsequiousness. Colbert jumped to the imperium’s tune with all the eagerness of a corporal obeying a field marshal, despite the Weylander’s supposed high rank. Colbert had clearly realized that he was fighting alongside the next emperor and empress of Vandia and was eager to prove his usefulness. If Prince Gyal requested the services of the prefect’s own grandmother as bayonet fodder in the front line, Duncan didn’t doubt he would see a silver-haired old lady stooped inside a bluecoated uniform in short order. I picked this side despite the cost to me. But you, Hugh Colbert, you contemptible lickspittle, you’re happy to pay with the lives of as many Weylanders as it takes, loyalist or rebel alike.
‘This is it.’ Prince Gyal thumped a fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Radioman, order the helo squadron to return loaded with treacle.’ He turned to grin at Helrena. ‘We shall lay a carpet of bodies down there, a carpet leading all the way to the diamond throne.’
‘The battle is not won yet, my Prince.’
‘Watch and learn, my darling.’
Duncan glared jealously from behind the prince as he watched the massing attack below. One lucky cannon shot from the battlements, is that too much to ask for? See if Helrena wishes to marry a bag full of body parts.
A couple of minutes later the southern batteries along Signal Hill rocked on their carriages, while curls of white smoke spread out in front of Midsburg’s walls. Bugles sounded the charge below, and the cavalry’s centre moved first, a slow canter initially, then a fast canter before reaching a full gallop, until a ‘V’ of horses and men hurtled full pelt across the southern trench works, hurdling the occasional low stone wall and hedge, hooves a thunderous clatter on the hard frozen soil. The switch from stone shattering shells to smoke canisters only seemed to encourage the ranks of northern cavalrymen. Perhaps they think we’re preparing to switch to grapeshot for their charge and want to gain the slope before the batteries are fully prepared to meet them? Duncan looked on with a mixture of horror and amazement. You’ll never get close enough to the batteries to taste grapeshot, you crazy dupes. Southern soldiers leapt up from behind the shelter of walls and hedges, long rippling lines of rifle smoke rising up as they poured fire into the charging horsemen, but the assembly’s cavalry were charging as though possessed, convinced of their immortality. The southern attackers’ forward ranks crumpled and fell, slashed by sabres from on high or cut down by carbine bullets; those that turned and fled only running far enough to be trampled under the thundering press of hooves. Some of the southern infantry ignored their hollering sergeants and broke and ran, unwilling to fall under the next sabre.
‘Messenger!’ barked Colbert, ‘Ride down there and tell whichever dolt is in command of those cowards to hold fast.’
‘Better you should order your soldiers to pull back,’ said Helrena. ‘They are too close to the enemy now.’
‘Too close for what?’ asked the prefect.
‘That.’ Helrena indicated a wave of perhaps thirty helos flying in low and fast from the west, drawn in on the prince’s orders. No bigger than dots coming in over the forested hills.
As Colbert jumped to do the princess’s bidding, another rider came galloping up, this one a colonel whom Duncan knew only too well. Father. Benner Landor halted his steed in front of the prefect, a mist of warm air fountaining from the horse’s nostrils. ‘Sir, we have nearly exhausted our stock of smoke canisters. Permission to load grapeshot when depleted!’
Colbert turned to the prince and princess, uncertain whose advice to seek first. Prince Gyal waved an imperious hand, as though the matter was of little concern to him.
‘Wait five minutes and then return to counter-battery fire,’ ordered Helrena. ‘Keep the defenders’ heads down on the ramparts as the Twelfth Armoured swings east.’
Colbert nodded as if this had been his intention all along. ‘As Her Majesty said, Colonel.’ He extended a leather-tubed telescope towards the charge. ‘Sweet saints, I do believe that is Field Marshal Houldridge himself leading the charge. He’s certainly determined to live up to his nickname.’
‘Shall I order our cannons to aim for him, sir?’ asked Benner Landor.
‘That would be far too coarse,’ said Colbert. ‘The leaders of armies have better things to do with their time. You have your orders, Colonel.’
Benner rode away, nodding down towards Duncan as he passed. ‘We’re giving the pretender and his grubby rebel friends a hard pounding this day, son.’
Duncan watched the helo squadron growing larger. Down below, the northern cavalry charge had covered half the farmland between the city’s walls and Signal Hill. ‘You’re about to have company in that,’ muttered Duncan. And I suspect the Vandians will pound harder.
The charging horsemen were sweeping all before them when the helo squadron passed low and fast, the chop of rotors mixing with the din of hooves, and then a series of black metal ovals fell tumbling from the helos and the landscape changed, converted from empty wheat fields and icy orchards into an ocean of fire. Flowering hot flames rippling with blackened bodies and whirling horses, a surf of devastation which swelled down to reveal a flat plain of clinging, cloying fire, most of the charging horsemen incinerated while the remainder, the outriders and laggards, turned and twisted enveloped in fire.
Oh dear God. ‘What is that?’ asked Duncan, staring horrified, trying to unhear the pitiful high-pitched whinnying of blackened horses and strangled cries of dying riders.
‘The legions’ treacle … a mixture of jellied naphtha, pine resin, quicklime and nitre,’ said Helrena. ‘It is a fire that is fed by water. Try to extinguish it and it only burns stronger.’
On the other side of the hill, safe from Midsburg’s diminished battery fire, the courtiers travelling with the army had abandoned their picnic blankets, winter braziers and hampers, strolling up to discover the source of the artillerymen’s wild cheering. A polite clapping joined the yells and hollers of the Army of the Boles, the men and women of King Marcus’s court applauding the end of the rebellion.
‘How can anyone call that war?’ said Duncan, sick to his stomach.
Booming laughter from Baron Machus echoed down the hillside, bellowing for the armour behind the hill to sweep across the barren, burning vista.
‘Bring my daughter back to me, Duncan. It is time.’
Duncan left to join the tank column, only too glad to put the sight of devastation behind him. Halfway down the hill he came across Leyla returning from the brow of the hill with the other courtiers. Her face lit up as she saw him.
‘I’m leaving to push my way through Midsburg’s defences,’ said Duncan, halting her. Better she doesn’t see what victory looks like.
‘You’re hunting for Willow?’ asked Leyla.
He shook his head. ‘Damn my sister! With Willow’s luck, she’ll probably crawl out of the ruins married to Prince Owen and calling herself queen,’ said Duncan. ‘It’s Lady Cassandra and Paetro I’m going in there for.’
‘I hardly think Viscount Wallingbeck would approve of such bigamy,’ said Leyla. ‘But Willow promised your father she would help return Lady Cassandra to the emperor. I’m sure your sister remembers her duty.’
‘If so, you’re the only one who is sure.’
Leyla reached out to touch his arm, tenderly. ‘Let someone else go through first, Duncan. You know what the soldiers first to breach a town’s walls are called in the army? The Forlorn Hope … almost certain death in exchange for duty and glory. You don’t have to risk your life.’
Duncan felt a wave of passion rising inside him. An unexpected reaction to the death behind him. For half a crown he’d shelter the woman behind one of the gun carriages and take her on a courtier’s picnic blankets. ‘I’m going. Not for glory, but for my house.’ For Cassandra.
Leyla glanced over towards Princess Helrena. ‘Your house? Haven’t you heard the rumours that your mistress is sworn to marry Prince Gyal?’
‘I have. They’re more than rumours.’ Sadly.
‘She does not deserve your loyalty, my brave fool. If you are to attempt this perilous thing, take your father’s sergeant with you. Nocks.’
‘That short cut-faced lout who used to be a servant in Hawkland Park?’
‘The same.’
‘I don’t know the man very well; he was hired after I left the Park. But he acted far too familiarly where Willow is concerned. You didn’t see the way Nocks was staring at her inside that restaurant in Arcadia.’
‘Nocks is not entirely to blame. He was one of your sister’s many servants in Northhaven,’ said Leyla. ‘Willow teased him constantly, leading him to draw conclusions beyond his station about their future together. The important thing is that before service with the Landors, Nocks served with the royal army on the Eastern Frontier; a hard commission which breeds even harder men. Nocks has kept Benner alive for me throughout this terrible rebellion. He knows his way well around a battlefield and will be only too happy to help save your sister. Mixed feelings for Willow are understandable given your sister’s betrayal of you, but I am the mistress of Hawkland Park and I still feel a duty to her, even though she is now Lady Wallingbeck. Please, do not make me watch Benner grieve for another lost child.’
‘It is you that my father doesn’t deserve.’ Duncan glanced around and pulled the woman tight, resisting the urge to kiss her.
‘Not here,’ said Leyla. ‘Later, after the battle. Find me. There will be hundreds of empty tents in the southern camp where we can meet.’
And how many of them were just emptied by the Vandian skyguard? ‘I won’t be among the missing,’ promised Duncan. ‘I’m planning to return. Send Willow’s servant to the Twelfth Legion. We’re advancing soon.’
‘Follow your duty, then. May it lead you straight to all that you deserve.’ Leyla gave him an enigmatic smile and left to locate Duncan’s father along the artillery line. Duncan watched her go with hungry eyes. His father’s young wife wasn’t who he really wanted, but she certainly helped fill the hollow void left by Helrena’s rejection. It will take returning Lady Cassandra to Helrena to show the princess my true value. I’ll do my duty. I’ll follow it through every damned traitor the rebellion has to throw at me.
Leyla Landor left Benner to his bombards and cannons and walked away with Nocks by her side. It hadn’t taken much to wheedle her husband’s trusted sergeant away from the landowner’s command. A hint or two about protecting Benner’s son combined with the advantage of helping return the emperor’s kidnapped granddaughter and he had practically shoved Nocks in her direction.
‘I can hardly ensure Benner steps in front of a bullet if I’m not beside him,’ complained Nocks as they walked towards the Vandian armoured column. ‘This siege is the first real action we’ve seen.’
‘There will be time enough for my darling husband’s ultimate sacrifice for the loyalist cause,’ said Leyla. ‘I require a casualty of war on Vandia’s side right now, and this might be our only opportunity before Duncan departs for the empire.’
‘The Landor boy? You sounded eager enough to protect him just now in front of old Benner. I thought you had the whelp compliant between the sheets?’
‘I needed Duncan biddable, but his usefulness to the cause is coming to an end.’
‘Never could tell when you were acting,’ snorted Nocks.
‘Duncan’s mistress is planning to plight her troth with Prince Gyal. Duncan Landor is foolish enough to think there will still be a place for him in their combined house; but I foresee him returning home in exile with a broken heart, seeking to take up his old station at Hawkland Park.’
‘And he’d be head of the house after Benner’s crushed by a gun carriage.’
‘I think my son deserves to be sole heir to the Landor fortune, don’t you?’
‘You could always marry the whelp after Benner’s accident.’
‘Mercy me, I think not. Husbands are far too unreliable in the long term,’ laughed Leyla.
‘You should know,’ grunted Nocks. ‘How many of yours have fallen under the wheels of a carriage or died from food poisoning?’
‘I would consider it common to count,’ said Leyla. ‘Benner is under orders to lay down a wall of smoke to mask the assault on the city walls. That is where Duncan Landor intends to be. Nobody will be able to see anything in the thick of it, all those bullets whistling though the air. A pistol shot in the back of the skull, to be sure?’
‘And the whelp’s sister?’
‘I doubt Willow’s still alive in Midsburg, but if she is …? Well, I understand the most dreadful things can happen to women when a city is sacked.’
‘That’s always the way of it,’ grinned Nocks. ‘And I can I feel in my bones that willowy Willow wouldn’t be able to live with the shame.’
Leyla nodded with satisfaction. And you, my odious brute, are going to make sure of it.
SIXTEEN
WHAT YOU CAN DO IN A TANNERY
Willow woke up, her head spinning. She was inside a works hall, a tannery, filled with great bubbling oak vats of foul-smelling chemicals; each smelt as though year-old carcasses were being rendered inside the tubs. She sat bound painfully to a chair with rope, and opposite her she could see Paetro, feet and legs secured against a similar wooden seat, his arms tight behind his back. A third chair lay between the two of them, unoccupied.
‘What—’ Willow tried to speak but coughed, retching and only just holding back the vomit.
‘Take a minute, lass,’ said Paetro. ‘We were poisoned. Do you remember? Inside the rooms your so-called friend found for us. We were studying the layout of the city hall Purdell sketched for us when supper arrived. The food was obviously laced with
something.’
‘Where are the others?’ Willow gasped.
‘Inside these vats,’ said Paetro. ‘I woke up in time to see Purdell sliding my boys’ dead bodies into the chemicals. The murdering turncoat bastard has other plans for you and me. Our dose wasn’t strong enough to kill us.’
Willow retched again, twice as strong. ‘Why? Why would he do that? Tom’s a friend of Carter; he said he’d help us?’
Paetro spat across the floor. ‘Purdell’s sold out to the locals rebels, I would say. We’re his ticket off that wanted poster you showed me.’
‘Right idea but wrong side, Vandian.’ A voice growled behind them. Thomas Purdell strode into view. Willow shivered. His voice had changed. Even his walk was wrong. It was as though the guild courier had been possessed and replaced by someone entirely different. Purdell came closer and inspected Willow as though she was meat for his table. ‘You two are my ticket to so much more than a mere pardon.’
Willow struggled in the chair but her bindings were too tight. ‘Mister Purdell! You don’t have to do this—’
‘No, I rather think I must. A trap needs to be baited with cheese, and you’re all the cheese I currently have.’
‘I don’t understand. You’re Carter and Jacob Carnehan’s friend? You said you would help me free them; trade Lady Cassandra for their liberty!’
Purdell reached and stroked her cheek gently. Willow flinched away from his icy fingers. Why are they so cold? ‘But they are already free, you little fool. Jacob Carnehan escaped King Marcus’s cells with the assistance of a vagrant hedgerow magician called Sariel Skel-Bane; and Carter fled north with Prince Owen when the assembly was outlawed. You don’t believe me? Ask your Vandian friend here. I’m sure he knows the truth. He was watching you like a hawk in case you ran into any of the Carnehan clan inside Midsburg. I spotted one of his soldiers tailing you the morning we met.’