The City

by Stella Gemmell

  She found Broglanh sitting among the wounded, waiting patiently for someone to tend his broken arm. His face was grey with pain, and she helped him get comfortable, leaning against a tree stump. He was talking to her, as if she could hear what he said, but she thought he was rambling. She spoke to him too, words of reassurance unheard. She spotted a canteen on a wandering horse, took it to Broglanh and helped him drink. He said something to her and grinned and she knew he was joking. He had not realised the emperor was dead. She smiled.

  At last there was a buzzing in her ears, she swallowed several times, and her hearing came back, tinny and faint.

  “Can you hear me now?” she asked Broglanh. But he had passed out, his broken right arm cradled in his left hand.

  Indaro stood and looked around her. Warriors trained in the surgeons’ craft were treating the most badly wounded soldiers. The prisoners had disappeared, taken away for interrogation. She searched for a while for the boy dressed in green, but could not see him. She guessed he had died. Then she spotted Fortance shouting orders at a group of riders, sending out scouts to look for other enemy soldiers. She walked over to him.

  “Your orders, sir.”

  Fortance looked at her. His face was still bloody, but his tears had been wiped away. She guessed his days as an officer of the Thousand were numbered. Only death and dishonour awaited him.

  “Indaro, yes?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The company will divide. One group will go post-haste to the City with the emperor. You will go ahead with that group.”

  Conflicting emotions battled in her breast. She knew she had acquitted herself well, and was glad Fortance had noticed her. Yet Fell Aron Lee had charged her with protecting her lord, and she had failed to do so. If she had been faster, quicker on the uptake, quicker on her feet, she could have stopped the assassin. She had assisted an unknown lad before she helped her emperor.

  “Yes, sir.” Then she said formally, “I’m sorry, sir, I couldn’t stop him.”

  Fortance nodded. “You did well, soldier. You probably saved the emperor’s life.”

  For a moment the words meant nothing. Then, “Saved?” she repeated.

  Fortance said, “The Immortal was injured. But he will recover, thanks be to the gods.”

  Indaro stared at him, speechless. It was impossible that anyone had survived the Blues’ sorcerous explosion. And she was certain, as sure as she was of anything, that when she had seen Fortance after the blast, the man had thought his emperor dead. She opened her mouth, then thought better of it, and turned away.

  She spent the next hour walking among the wounded, giving them water and stitching the most superficial of wounds. Finally they were ordered to mount and she ran to the waiting grey and climbed into the saddle. The emperor had been removed to a baggage-cart and a canvas screen erected around him. It was an undignified conveyance, but experienced surgeons were a long way away and it was necessary to get the Immortal back to the City as soon as possible. Fast riders had already been sent back for help.

  As they made their way across the wastelands of Salaba, Indaro was riding in the rear with the ordinary cavalry, perhaps forty riders. The remains of the Thousand, fewer than twenty in all, rode ahead. She called to mind Fortance’s face, and tried to guess if he was lying to her. But she did not know the man, and shock and grief made liars of us all, she thought. She realised she was dog-tired and wondered how long it had been since she had slept, or eaten.

  They were heading for the ancient Paradise Gate, to the south of the gate they had left the day before, and closer to the centre of the City. Even so, it would take them the rest of the day to get there.

  There was a cry from up ahead and the company came to a halt, riders putting hands to swords and looking around. As the dust settled Indaro saw horsemen riding towards them across the flat meadows from the west, bright with silver and gold glittering in the sunshine. There were more than a hundred riders, she thought, in lines of four, and they stayed rigidly in formation as they drew near and reined in. Behind them trailed an empty carriage of plain wood.

  The troop’s leader was a woman with grey hair cropped like a man’s, slim and straight, dressed in ordinary riding clothes, with nothing to indicate rank. She slid off her horse and spoke to Fortance, then disappeared into the baggage-cart.

  “Who is that?” Indaro asked the tall rider alongside her, but he shook his head. She wished she were with the Thousand, whose members would certainly know, being closer to the emperor and the mighty.

  But the tall rider had asked the man next to him, who had asked also, and eventually the answer came back down the line.

  “She is Saroyan, Lord Lieutenant of the East,” the rider told her. She nodded, and he grinned at her.

  Lord lieutenants held a compromised position in the ranks of the nobles, she remembered Archange telling her. Chosen by the emperor, their powers were potentially sweeping, yet they held no position in relation to the emperor’s armies. Thus it took a powerful personality to stamp his or her authority on the post. Mostly, she had heard, they coasted along in a ceremonial role, enjoying the pleasures of rank without engaging with any of the responsibilities.

  But this Saroyan acted like a soldier, ordering the troops with brisk authority. She ducked out of the carriage and mounted again. Fortance trotted his horse over and she asked him questions, and listened to him closely, her eyes on his. He turned and cast a look over the troops, then they both gazed at Indaro. Fortance beckoned to her and Indaro heeled the grey forward. Up close she could see the woman was older than she at first seemed. Her eyes were very light, almost yellow—a colour Indaro had never before seen in a living being. She wore a ring in her right ear with a light grey stone.

  “This is Indaro Kerr Guillaume,” the veteran warrior said, “of the Wildcats. She stopped the assassin reaching the Immortal’s carriage.”

  Saroyan stared at her coolly, her protuberant eyes pale as ice under winter sun.

  “Guillaume,” she said. “Reeve’s get?”

  Indaro nodded, fearing the woman would say something about deserters, but the lord lieutenant merely blinked, then turned away. She ordered the company to divide again. The ordinary troopers, including Indaro, were to ride on into the City with the baggage-cart. The rest of the Thousand, perhaps in disgrace, would return to the site of the ambush and help the wounded. Two surgeons from the City would go with them. Saroyan remounted her horse and turned back towards the City, riding in front of the cortege. The rest of the riders fell in behind.

  Their progress was slow, and the steady movement of the mare was conducive to sleep. Indaro was so tired she kept drifting off in the saddle, waking suddenly from time to time, her knees gripping the horse with a start. The tall rider, who had chosen to ride next to her again, tried to make conversation, but she was too exhausted to be polite.

  The City came in sight. First a brown smudge appeared in the distant west, between the grey mare’s ears. Indaro felt the thrill run through many of the troopers as they saw the first sight of their home. She guessed they had been fighting far away too. They were riders of the First Adamantine Cavalry, and they called themselves the Nighthawks.

  “How long since you were last in the City?” she asked the tall rider.

  He turned cold eyes on her, perhaps reluctant to speak to someone who had largely ignored him.

  “Three years,” he told her, biting off the words.

  She nodded, impressed. Armies had been in the field longer than that, but not often. It seemed the assassination attempt was good news for these soldiers.

  “You?” he asked civilly.

  “A year, slightly less.”

  The stain on the horizon resolved itself into a tall grey slab of mountain, surrounded by low green foothills. In front of them Indaro could now make out the line of the wall. They were perhaps an hour away at this pace, and she allowed herself to start thinking of food and, best of all, sleep. And she wondered what would h
appen to her now. Fortance had her papers. Had he passed them on to the lord lieutenant? Or had she, an odd duck in this flight of hawks, been forgotten?

  Indaro had never been to the Paradise Gate; she had never entered that part of the City, and she was pleased when the cortege sped up slightly, as if even Saroyan was eager to get home. They were riding now through green pasture, horse meadows and sheep fields, divided by lively springs. The highway was of flat stone. Elderly field workers stopped to stare as the cortege passed. Indaro saw a group of young girls relieved, if only for moments, from some dreary task, jumping up and down and waving with delight as the riders passed by. Some of the men at the rear of the procession waved back.

  As they drew closer, Indaro looked up at the grey-green mountain which rose abruptly before them. It was called the Shield of Freedom and was said to be riddled with caves and tunnels, the last sanctuary of the emperor and his Family if ever this part of the City were invaded. At its foot were rolling green hills where the palaces of the mighty nestled in fabulous gardens.

  The high bronzed doors of the Paradise Gate opened for them. Indaro glanced at the runes carved on the gate posts as the riders thundered through.

  The barracks of the Nighthawks lay hard against the inner wall. The massive stones of the wall, worn smooth and rounded by the bitter rains of millennia, formed one side of the troopers’ mess where Indaro found herself that evening. So hungry and tired she was beyond making decisions, she would have eaten or slept, whichever opportunity presented itself first. She found the stables, where she saw the mare fed and watered. Then she followed the Nighthawks to their mess. She was sat at a table slumped over a thick tasteless stew when the tall rider found her.

  “You do not belong here,” he commented, sitting down.

  She raised her eyes to him wearily. He was clean-shaven, like Fell, and his eyes were grey.

  “I am with the Third Maritime, under Randell Kerr,” she volunteered.

  “Ah, the Maniac.”

  She nodded her head. “Some call him that.” The general was well-named, but she would not admit that to a grey.

  She volunteered, “My papers were given to Fortance…”

  “A dead man.”

  He is full of observations, she thought. “…so I will eat and sleep, then I will seek new orders.”

  He nodded, then smiled. “They call me Riis.”

  “Indaro.”

  “Will you have sex with me, Indaro?”

  She almost laughed, but instead she told him gravely, “I have not eaten for three days and I cannot remember when I last slept. Perhaps four days. And I have been in two battles since then.”

  “So is that a yes?”

  She smiled. He was very handsome. “No, Riis,” she said.

  After she had eaten he pointed her in the direction of the sleeping quarters, where she found a narrow bed among snoring soldiers and drifted off to sleep, her sword clutched to her, her brain too tired to try and make sense of the day. When she awoke again it was dark still, or again? The troopers sleeping around her seemed to be different ones. Did I sleep for a full day? she wondered. She felt refreshed, and she got up and retrieved her helm and breastplate from under the bed then, shrugging, thrust them back again. A grey would scarcely lower himself to steal red armour. She would return for them. She strapped on her sword and made her way out, seeking someone in authority.

  The barracks were silent, and the only soldiers she saw, drinking outside an inn across the street, were staring gloomily into their mugs. She glanced up at the quarter moon and saw the dawn was chasing the night. The night air felt cool and clean on her face, and she was entranced by the City around her. The great wall dominated her vision. It was higher here than she had ever seen, and it sloped away from her as it rose. She wondered how thick it was at the base. She must have crossed through it, but she could not remember entering the gates the previous day. She turned away from the wall, looking towards the great bulk of the Shield of Freedom which filled her vision in the other direction. It stood like a sentry in the moonlight. She recalled her father telling her it was also called the Serafia, though she did not know what that meant. Lights flickered and gleamed from the top of it, and from the base a line of lights—a pathway perhaps—rose in a wavering line weaving back and forth up the massive silvery rock

  She followed narrow alleys and twittens between high buildings. This was the design close inside all the City’s gates, a second line of defence against invasion. This was the quarter they called Paradise, and she saw it was well named. She passed shops and craftshouses, but even at night warm lights gleamed behind barred windows. All around her she saw the jewelled glow of stained glass, and the gleam of polished woods. Among the shops high wooden doors guarded the homes of the wealthy. Once she paused to see a company of young women, guarded by private militia, descend from a rich carriage and flutter into a courtyard. Inside she glimpsed a playing fountain and flowers gleaming startling white in the moonlight. The guardians of the fluttering moths turned to stare at her as she passed, suspicious of a lone soldier in the night. She glared back at them, contemptuous of warriors who chose to guard the daughters of the rich, and contemptuous too of the girls whose fathers’ influence kept them out of the armies. She thought of her home on the grey cliffs and wondered if her father still lived, and where her brother was.

  At last she came out into a moonlit square where stood a white temple to the god of virtue, Themistos, the philosophers’ god. From here she could see the Shield, the Serafia, again. She was surprised that her long walk had brought it no closer. The air must be very clear, she thought, sniffing the light breeze. It smelled of flowers and morning bread. From where she stood the land sloped downwards to a sluggish river, crossed by three bridges. On this side of the river must be the homes of the wealthy, facing west, with the Shield in front of them.

  The emperor’s home, the Red Palace, was far away, on low land many leagues to the west. The palaces of other Families were said to be on the Shield. She idly wondered if a Guillaume palace was up there somewhere, unused, untenanted.

  She realised the night around her was changing. She could hear the chirping of early birds and the morning braying of donkeys. Soon there would be people around. Reluctantly she turned back towards the wall. It would not do, she thought, to be charged with desertion twice in one lifetime.

  When she got back to the barracks a soldier told her Fortance was looking for her. She followed the man’s directions and, after a few missteps in the warren around the Paradise Gate, turned a corner onto a stone parade ground. She spotted the old warrior talking to the lord lieutenant again. And she paused, just out of view, watching them.

  Indaro seldom disliked a person on sight, but she found herself repelled by the woman. Saroyan was thin and tall. Plain as a scorpion. Cold as ice. She became suddenly convinced the two were talking about her. Saroyan’s head slowly turned towards her, and she flinched, backing into the protection of the wall. When she peered out again Fortance was walking away into the distance and Saroyan still stood in the same spot.

  Indaro decided that if she had no orders it was her duty to return to her company. All thoughts of ambition, recognition, promotion, had vanished, and she was eager to get back to her comrades. She retrieved her armour from the sleeping quarters and found the mare fed and rested at the stables. As the sun cleared the horizon in a glory of pink and gold she slipped out through the Paradise Gate and headed the horse towards it.

  Chapter 10

  The waves of colour formed a pattern under the heat of the noon sun. At the start of the battle the lines of blue and red were straight and wide, strong and firm. Outlying patches of grey and black were solid, fast-moving. The craftsmen who created these patterns had no doubts about their abilities and deployed them with a confident hand. They had done it so often before. The lines clashed, blending their colours, bleeding blue into red, red into blue. As the long day wore on the colours lost definition and clouds of dust furth
er confused the patterns. By the last stages of the battle, when the surviving troops returned to their defences, everything on that plain would be grey tinged with red.

  The battlefield was flat and so deep that high wooden towers had been built at its rear so the architects of the battle could watch. The generals were gathered on a tower with their aides and servants. Some were eating and drinking, food laboriously winched up to them, for they might be there some time. Others forebore to indulge themselves while their troops were being slaughtered, but they chatted and sometimes laughed and only once in a while turned their attention to the carnage sprawling beneath them. A few stood quietly watching every move, every valiant push, each bitter blow.

  Fell stood with these men, impotent fury swirling in his heart. For one hundred and fourteen consecutive days he had stood, armed and armoured, at the front line of his warriors and endured every triumph, every reverse with them. But this morning Flavius Randell Kerr, general of the Third Maritime, had ordered him to stay back and watch from the tower.