“Treachery is in the eye of the beholder.”
Dol Salida shook his head. “No, old friend, it is not. A man who conspires against the emperor is a traitor. It is really quite simple.”
“The City is dying,” the general said, “because evil holds sway. My first duty is to the City, not to the Immortal.”
Dol Salida limped forward and asked, quite gently, “Are you sure you are not blinded by the need for vengeance? I understand that. You have been hard-used by the Immortal. But he is still emperor and will be obeyed. You are a traitor and all traitors must die.”
He signalled to the young warrior, who lifted his sword.
“Please don’t harm my daughter,” Bart asked, despair in his voice.
Dol nodded. “I will see she is safe, general. This is not her battle.”
“No,” Emly breathed, readying herself to leap in front of the sword. In that moment Bart’s life was more important than her own, for she could not imagine hers without him.
But she was stunned to see the young warrior reverse his weapon and present it to the old general, as he dropped to one knee on the muddy floor.
“Lord Shuskara,” he said. “You have my blade and my life. Command me.”
Chapter 41
We need to go down another level,” Elija said. According to the maps in his head there was only one entrance to the Keep. He had no doubt there were others, but they could not afford time trying to find them. He knew the entrance was in the west of the palace, marked on most maps as the Porphyry Gate. It had lodged in his mind because of the strange word, and he wondered what it meant.
He led Indaro and Garret along a wide corridor. They ran, for it was clearly a major route through the palace and they were likely to meet opposition at any moment. Elija spotted a staircase going down to his left, and he ran down it, the warriors at his heels. As they reached the bottom they heard marching feet and a platoon of soldiers came into sight. With a yell the leader drew his sword.
There was nowhere to go except back up. Indaro pushed Elija up in front of her then turned to face the soldiers, Garret beside her. There were twenty or more soldiers, but they could only get to the stairs two at a time. The first pair were on them, but Indaro and Garret had the advantage of height and desperation. They killed the first two without difficulty. Even Elija quickly realised these were not battle-hardened warriors, but youngsters of sixteen or seventeen, younger than him, recently pressed into the army. They wore clean red uniforms and their boots and weapons were shiny.
Stepping back up a step, Garret said, “New Wildcats.”
Glancing nervously up the staircase, Elija thought, We can’t be trapped here. He saw the leader speak to one of his soldiers, who ran off. Within moments it seemed they heard the deep sound of a gong echoing through the palace. Elija ran up the steps, back to the main corridor. He looked right and left. No one. But he knew that any time another platoon of soldiers would be on them.
On the stairs below Indaro slashed one youngster through the throat just as Garret disabled another with a blade to the groin.
“Now!” she yelled, and they turned and raced up the stairs. The soldiers had to clamber up over the bodies of their dead to follow, giving them valuable moments.
“This way!” Elija fled before them down the corridor, then through a connecting passageway and down another corridor. This ended in a doorway and they had no choice but to go through. They found themselves in a magnificent hall decorated with white stone statues, and full of books. There were three doors in the wall opposite. Elija hesitated. Which one? Maps teemed through his head, with mazes of tunnels and gates and stairs and halls and…
“Which way?” Indaro asked urgently. They could hear the sound of the gong and shouts and running feet.
But it was too late. One of the doors opposite flew open, and soldiers came crashing through. Elija glanced out of the door they had come through and saw more at their heels. He slammed the door shut. Then he backed into a corner. Indaro and Garret turned over a heavy wooden table, then retreated behind it.
The warriors, more of the Thousand, Elija saw with dismay, were waiting for orders. Their leader, a burly, red-faced man, commanded, “We want them alive. Marcellus’ orders.”
The soldiers came at them with respect, four at a time. One vaulted the table and was speared in mid-leap by Garret’s sword. As Garret was at full stretch he was attacked from the side by a second soldier, who aimed for his exposed armpit. Garret swayed sideways and the weapon whispered by his body, then slammed into the horizontal table leg. Indaro parried a thrust to her neck then ducked a ferocious sweep to the head. She skewered the first attacker in the eye but was unbalanced and the second assailant, a big red-headed warrior, ran her through the hip. She fell to one knee, blood splashing down her leg.
These are no youngsters, Elija thought, they are warriors as skilful as Indaro and Garret, but fresher and more eager. We will not survive this time, he thought, backing behind his two friends. They will capture us and torture us. He found himself wishing he had stayed in the room they had rested in, as Indaro had suggested. He did not fear death, but he did fear torture.
Elija saw there was no chance the two could defend themselves for more than moments. He rushed forward. He had no skill with weapons, but he picked up a sword, fallen from a dead man’s hand.
Indaro was on her feet again. It was as though the wound had given her extra strength and energy. She fought as if possessed, and when one man went down she screamed a battle cry which froze Elija’s blood.
The only thing keeping them alive was the upended table. The commander of the warriors bellowed an impatient order to drag it away. As one soldier grabbed a wooden leg Elija slashed at the man’s wrist with all his might, half severing the hand. A second stepped up to take his place, and Elija, encouraged, darted forward again. But his blade slid harmlessly off the man’s armour. The warrior grabbed the boy by the throat and threw him angrily into the corner.
Elija hit the wall hard and felt an agonising pain. He stared down at his left arm in shock. The forearm was bent at an unnatural angle. For a moment he did not recognise it as his own limb. He groaned as the pain swelled and racked his body. He cradled the injured arm in his right hand and the agony increased. His vision blurred. He sank to the floor, too shocked to move.
Then there was a shouted order and the fighting died away. Elija looked up fearfully. Why are they stopping? Is it over? The warriors stepped aside for a man to enter the room. Elija saw he was dressed like a lord and was unarmed. He wondered if this was the emperor.
“The last of the traitors,” the man said with satisfaction, smiling at them as if he was well pleased, and Elija found the pounding in his heart ease. The man’s tone was reasonable. Traitors? he thought. Who are the traitors?
Indaro glanced at Elija. Her practised eye assessed the broken arm. He would not be able to go on, a frail boy like that. He had to make a sling—surely he knew this? Then she remembered this was the first time he had seen battle. He did not know about injuries. She would see to it later.
She felt very calm. The sword weighed heavy in her hand and she lowered it, noting Garret had put his down too. The warriors in black and silver were cleaning their weapons and sheathing them. Some helped injured comrades, others checked the dead. The battle was over. All that remained was the clearing-up.
The man in the centre of the room was looking at Garret. “What is your name, soldier?” he asked.
“Garret,” he replied and the man’s black eyes passed over him, uninterested.
Indaro felt she should do something, say something. There was a reason they were here, but she could not remember it.
“I am Indaro Kerr Guillaume,” she managed, her voice rasping as if rusty from lack of use. “And you are?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Marcellus Vincerus,” he said, and he added, “and you are Rubin’s sister.”
She nodded, her attempt at conversation at an end. She was
pleased the man knew of Rubin. Perhaps he had met him. She felt calm now the battle was over, and grateful to the man for ending it. She could not remember why they had been fighting. Probably something pointless, she thought.
“So your father is responsible for this doomed venture,” Marcellus said. “I thought he no longer had it in him.”
Indaro frowned. “No,” she said. He has it all wrong, she thought. Eager to set him straight, she was about to tell him about Mason and Gil Rayado, and about Fell and general Shuskara, when a soldier ran into the room.
“Lord!” Marcellus turned. Indaro blinked and rubbed her eyes. As if waking from a dream, she hefted her sword, moving sluggishly.
“The Immortal!” the soldier cried. “He is under attack. In the Hall of Emperors!”
Without hesitation the lord strode towards the door.
“Marcellus,” asked the commander, “do you want these three questioned?”
Pausing, his lord said, “No. Just let them go.”
And Marcellus left the room, his warriors at his heels. Indaro watched the door close, heard the latch snicker shut. In the silence she stared at Garret, baffled.
PART SEVEN
The Gulon Veil
Chapter 42
The last Petrassi army lay becalmed on the foothills of the great mountain range called the Wall of the Gods south of the City. Had its commanders wished to conceal the twenty thousand armed men they would have succeeded, for after half a year endured in one place, much of it under pouring rain, the army had blended into the landscape, the speckled greys and browns of men, their tents, horses and supplies indistinguishable from earth, brush and rock. Once these rolling hills had been thickly clothed with stands of oak and beech, but the City in its unceasing hunger had chewed up all the timber, leaving thick, near-impenetrable undergrowth in places, and elsewhere bald rock. A crimson eagle, soaring uncaring beneath the rain clouds, might not spot the army camped on the slopes. Although it would hear it, for twenty thousand men make a constant rumble of noise, even at night.
And it would certainly smell it. Between the front lines of the encamped army and the southern plain of the City lay thousands of rotting corpses, grave witness to the battles fought by the City to regain this crucial land from the Petrassi. The invaders had held on grimly, despite crippling losses, and the City army, frustrated and exhausted, was now retired behind its walls of stone.
It was well short of noon, the morning grey and rain-soaked as ever, and somewhere near the centre of the encampment a man sat in a tent writing by lantern light. Hayden Weaver, commander of the last great army to stand against the City, wrote a letter to his wife each day. Sometimes it was brief and hurried, a mere sentence indicating he was still alive. But often, as today, he had the leisure to tell dear Anna of the previous day’s events, the gossip among his young officers, even the troop deployments, for he always ensured each day’s letter was not despatched until the following morning; he would not want word of his death to be followed by a cheerful missive from him.
A fat drop of water fell on the thick writing paper and Hayden cursed. He took off his spectacles, looked up and cursed again. The material of the tent was so sturdy that a veritable lake of rain had built up on it, and the ceiling was sagging alarmingly in the middle. The general stood and grabbed his sword, sheathed and belted, and lunged at the bulging tent with the hilt-end, forcing the water up and out. He heard a volley of shouts and curses from outside and smiled to himself, his good humour restored. He sat down again and signed his name with a flourish, then held the letter up to the warmth of the lantern to dry.
His brother ducked in through the tent flap, grinning broadly.
“Well done,” said Mason. “You drenched Pieter Arendt and his aides.”
They smiled at each other. There was a long history of rivalry between the two families. “Man has too many aides,” Hayden commented.
Mason coughed. “It’s foul in here,” he complained. “That lantern’s smoking.” Hayden only grunted, and Mason walked over to a side table and poured himself a glass of wine. He took a deep sip to moisten his throat then sat down in a folding canvas chair and stretched his legs out comfortably. He watched his brother fold and seal the letter.
Mason Weaver had waited until Gil Rayado had left Old Mountain with Fell and the others, then he had collected his small bag of possessions, mounted up and made his way west and south-west, alone, travelling at night through enemy territory, until he reached the Odrysian garrison at Mount Gargaron. There he had killed time for two interminable days while the commander had verified his credentials then sent him on, with good luck wishes, to the Petrassi army camped ten leagues to the south.
Now the day they had planned for for so long had arrived. The explosives were laid. Everyone had their orders. All they could do was wait. Mason settled more comfortably in his chair. He had waited forty years. He could wait a few hours longer.
His brother laid the letter on the table, patted it fondly, then gazed up at Mason. The two were not alike. Hayden, the elder, was tall and thin, stooped, with the demeanour of a scholar. It was Mason, stocky and heavy of shoulder, who looked like the old soldier, although he had not been one for a very long time.
“You never have any doubts, do you?” commented Hayden. It was not really a question.
“And you have nothing but,” his brother replied.
“Only between you and me. Never for the men.”
Mason nodded.
A soldier came in through the tent opening and shook himself like a dog. Hayden frowned as he was sprayed with raindrops.
“Sorry, sir,” said the aide, although he did not look sorry. Perhaps he had been standing outside. “There’s a rider coming from the north.”
“Bring him in.” The aide nodded and went back out into the rain.
“I am arguing,” said Hayden as if there had been no interruption, “that Marcellus as emperor would almost certainly sue for peace. We have been told that from many sources, including Archange.”
“Almost certainly,” Mason repeated. “How many thousands of lives, lives of our own people, rest on that ‘almost certainly’? It is too late, brother. Cities have been destroyed, whole nations wiped out. Generations of our young men have been killed. The Petrassi live on the edge of extinction. Our friends the Odrysians are dwindling, dying, their womenfolk in hiding in foreign lands. I was at the Lion’s Palace, remember. There are fewer than two hundred Tuomi still living.” His voice was rough with emotion and he paused for a moment.
“I know Marcellus,” he reminded his brother, more calmly, “and I do not think that is a judgement of him I would agree with.”
Hayden, frowning, put his finger to his lips. Mason fell silent and they could both hear a louder silence from outside, of soldiers hushed to hear their argument. Then there was a flurry of movement and voices and the aide appeared again at the tent flap. He ushered in a young man in riding leathers and a waterproof cape. This rider was barely more than a child, slender and pale, his straw hair plastered to his head. Rain was still sheeting off him and he stared regretfully at the rough-planked floor where pools of water were gathering.
“Well?” Hayden asked.
The aide said, “He is Adelmus, a rider with the Odrysian scouts. I can vouch for his identity.”
“Adelmus?”
“Sir,” said the rider, still gazing at the floor. “The alarm gongs have started. In the Red Palace.”
“How long ago?”
The scout seemed baffled by the question. Hayden wondered if this was the best the Odrysians had left.
“Before I left, sir.”
Hayden suppressed his irritation. “Did you leave immediately?”
The boy nodded, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“And you rode post-haste?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Adelmus.” To the aide he said, “See he has food and returns safely to his people. And Tyler.”
�
�Sir?” The aide paused.
“Why has an Odrysian reached us with this news before one of our own?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Tyler seemed about to shrug, then stifled the gesture. “Perhaps our own scouts have been captured.”
“Do we trust this boy? He seems simple.”
This time Tyler did shrug. “He is who he says he is, sir. Perhaps the Odrysians choose their scouts for their speed in the saddle rather than their speed of thought.”
Hayden grunted and glanced at Mason, who glanced at the timepiece on the desk and said, “It is still well before noon. We can afford to wait for confirmation.”
The general shook his head. He stood and grabbed his sword-belt again. He slung it round his hips, then stepped out of the tent into the thick drizzle. Pieter Arendt and his brothers and aides and followers turned to watch him from under their rain shelter. He saw their heads come up and their shoulders straighten. The murmured buzz of conversation all around slowed and stopped as soldiers noticed him and realised it was time. Unit commanders appeared suddenly out of the greyness, watching him expectantly. Some held the reins of fresh horses, saddled and ready.
Hayden looked around. Weak sunlight shone through the rain clouds, the first they had seen for days. Was that a good omen? On a clear day they would have a view three ways, once one of the loveliest on earth: to the west across the sea, silver as slate in winter, dark like wine in the heat of summer; to the east across plains that had been rich with grasses and the horses which thrived on them; and northwards to the greatest city on earth. Hayden looked to the north. It was just possible to see the outline of the City. It lay on its desolate plain like a dried scab, the general thought.
“Tyler.”
“Sir.”
“Give the order to demolish the lower dam.”
The aide nodded and moved off into the greyness. There was a long silence, men waited, horses neighed and shifted, snorting. Then a flare burst suddenly into the sky, climbing through the rain, spluttering and hissing. Its baleful yellow glow turned the warriors’ upturned faces to death’s-heads.
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