by Gav Thorpe
A horn sounded somewhere to the left, the warning note taken up by other musicians in the legion. Ullsaard's eyes immediately went to the gates, which were opening to release a stream of men. The Magilnadan warriors advanced towards the closest engines, their intent obvious.
Guard companies from the legion mobilised quickly, departing their camp to intercept the raiders. Such was the speed of the Magilnadan attack, they were upon the closest catapult while the Askhan reinforcements were still several hundred paces away. Fighting erupted along the revetment and the Magilnadans broke through in places, hacking at the ropes of the war machine and smashing canisters of oil. As the legionnaires closed in on them, the raiders set a fire in the fortification and scrambled away. They dashed back towards the gate, the more heavily armoured Askhans unable to catch them.
With the Magilnadans no more than a hundred paces from safety, a squadron of kolubrids closed quickly, unleashing a storm of bellows bolts. The running men were defenceless against the torrent and several dozen fell before a cloud of shafts lifted up from the walls and descended upon the Askhan cavalry. Driven back, the kolubrids turned away and the raiders escaped into the city.
"We should have some companies watching the gate," said a legionnaire behind Ullsaard. "They've got too much time for this sort of thing."
"Do you want to stand out there in range of their engines, just waiting for them to come out?" another replied. "Not me, for sure."
There were murmurs of agreement and muted laughs.
"When there're enough fires burning, we'll sort out the towers and the catapults," Ullsaard told his men. "It's just a matter of being patient. Unless you want to have a go now?"
Nervous denials greeted the offer and Ullsaard grinned.
"What if I said I was going to be first in?" the king suggested. "Would you follow me?"
This time the legionnaires were more enthusiastic, though there were several who did not seem to relish the prospect of the forthcoming assault. Ullsaard smiled, patted a few shoulders in encouragement and clambered down from the tower.
A second captain awaited the king when he reached the ground.
"First Captain Aalmunis requests that you see him in his pavilion, king," said the officer. "Scouts have arrived from hotwards."
"Thank you," Ullsaard said with a nod.
He followed the captain through the camp to Aalmunis's tent. The guard outside stood to attention and presented their spears at his approach. With a nod to return the salute, Ullsaard stepped inside.
Aalmunis had several maps spread out on the rugs. Three men in leathers stood with him, one of them pointing at something on a map of the border between Ersua and Free Country. All looked up as Ullsaard entered.
"News?" said the king.
"The Magilnadan legions have left their stations on the border," said Aalmunis. He crouched and drew a finger along a serpentine line of blue paint. "They're moving along the Neegha River."
Ullsaard studied the map. The traitors' route took them to duskwards, at least fifty miles behind the siege lines. If they meant to lift the siege, there were much easier roads to take.
"They're trying to get away," said Ullsaard.
"That was my conclusion," said Aalmunis. "We can't spare enough men to block their retreat, unless you want to forego an assault and starve out the Magilnadans."
Scratching at his beard, Ullsaard sifted through the maps until he found one on which were marked the camps of the legions further to duskwards. He made a quick assessment of the situation and who was best positioned to act.
"Send messages to the Eleventh, Fourteenth and Nineteenth," he said. Aalmunis took up a wax slate and stylus from a table and started making notations. "They'll have to move quickly. Have them break camp and march to Eaghrus and Lennina. They should be able to catch the Magilnadans as they try to cross the bridges."
"What if they turn further coldwards, through these forests here?" asked one of the scouts, pointing to a huge swathe of green that spread into the foothills of the Ersuan Mountains.
"We'll have to let them get away," Ullsaard replied with a sigh. "If that end of the line is moved further coldwards, the legions will be too isolated and vulnerable to a Salphor attack."
"I'll have orders written up by the next bells," Aalmunis told the scouts. "Get yourselves something to eat and fresh mounts, you'll be leaving as soon as possible."
The scouts acknowledged their orders with quick bows and left. Ullsaard fixed Aalmunis with a stare.
"I want those Magilnadan scum slaughtered to a man," said the king. "Those legions killed my son, a prince of the Blood. Do you understand?"
"Yes, king," said Aalmunis. "We'll make sure those treacherous bastards wish they'd never crawled out of the bitches that spawned them."
IX
Smoke hung over the city in a thick pall, coating every surface with soot. Blackened bodies lay sprawled in fuming ruins, and the streets were choked with the crushed and bloodied. At first the people had tried to move the bodies into the lower city, but now there were just too many and everybody was too tired.
Groups of people wandered the streets with vacant looks, some of them clutching children whose grimy faces were streaked with lines of tears. Others sat in the rubble and wept, or simply stood unmoving at street corners while the desperate and the traumatised shuffled past.
The gate towers had fallen shortly after the bombardment had recommenced at dawn. The parapet of the wall was like a row of broken teeth, and in places the wall itself was crumbling, slopes of stone tumbled into the streets behind.
Anglhan picked his way through the destruction, swathed in a hooded cloak, a handcart dragged behind carrying a small chest of coins and gems. His head throbbed from lack of sleep; for the whole of the previous night the Askhans had beaten drums, a slow, terrifying tempo that presaged the assault to come. For just three days they had battered Magilnada, but in three days they had brought Anglhan's city to ruins.
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 fight 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.