The City

by Stella Gemmell

  Elija was lying on the opposite seat. He was dead to the world, in a deep, healing lorassium sleep. His arm had been set and splinted by a kind, grave man who told her it would knit well, for he was young.

  Then Archange had come to her again and asked the question for the third time. Will you let me take care of you, Emly? Gratefully, this time she said yes. Her father was dead and she was a young woman in a ruined city full of soldiers. And she had her brother to think of. She thought longingly of Evan, but a wide streak of practicality told her she could not rely on the warrior as a protector. She would accept Archange’s help and be grateful for it.

  So now they were riding through the city in a carriage drawn by six horses, with outriders before and behind. They were heading east, towards the great mountain called the Shield of Freedom. Em stuck her head out of the window. This part of the City had not been damaged by the floods, and people were hurrying by with piles of possessions on their backs, or on donkeys, or on old carts. Many of them looked up at the imperial carriage with dead, or envious, eyes. She guessed they were leaving the invaded City, for they all seemed to be moving with a purpose, but some were going one way, some another; there seemed no rhyme or reason.

  She looked up. On the steep slopes of the Shield the afternoon sunlight lit the palaces dotted among swathes of dark forest. She could make out a winding white road, ever rising, which would appear for a while then plunge back into the trees. Emly wondered if they were travelling up there. She hoped so. She craned her neck but could not see the top of the mountain. Is there a palace right at the top? she thought. Is that where Archange lives?

  She considered if she could get word to Evan, but he had been close to Archange’s side since they left the Red Palace, so she guessed he probably knew where she was. There was to be a hero’s funeral for Bartellus in two days’ time, and Evan Broglanh would certainly be there.

  Em became aware of the thunder of hooves, growing louder. She peered out. The men and horses, a small army it seemed, were armoured in grey and she realised, her chest tightening, that these were the enemy. She retreated into the carriage and looked anxiously to Archange. The old woman seemed to be sleeping peacefully, her head supported on a soft cushion in the corner of the carriage. But without opening her eyes she said, “Don’t be afraid. They won’t harm you.”

  Then she roused herself and sat up, patting down a stray hair, rearranging the neck of her gown.

  Reassured, Emly gazed out again and saw a rider had detached himself from the body of the army and was speaking with the leader of Archange’s guard. The old woman waited impatiently for a few moments, then she leaned across Em and called sharply, “General!”

  The men turned towards her and she cried, “Let him through, you fools!”

  The rider was garbed in dark travel-stained clothes, a uniform of some sort, Emly thought, with an insignia on his breast. He was old, with long unkempt grey hair, and he looked as though he had not slept for a week. He appeared to be unarmed.

  “Greetings, lady,” he said, coming up to the carriage door. He opened it but stood outside in the dust. His voice was rough as though he had been inhaling sand, but he did not sound like a foreigner to Em’s ears.

  “Hayden,” Archange replied. She reached forward a skinny hand and he touched her pale fingers with his dirty stubby ones.

  “I regret to tell you your brother is dead,” she told him briskly, sounding anything but regretful.

  “I feared so,” he said calmly, but Em thought she saw a light go out in his gaze. “How did he die?”

  “Marcellus killed him.”

  The soldier nodded. “Appropriate,” he said. “Marcellus is also dead, I’m told.”

  “He killed himself.”

  The soldier frowned. “Marcellus is the last person I would expect to take his own life.”

  She shrugged. “You did not know him well. I spoke to the soldier who was with him. It is clear to me that he chose to die.”

  The man said nothing, and after a moment Archange went on, “In a thousand years one can accumulate a lot of deeds one is not proud of. I think the burden of these weighed heavily on his soul. He had lived too long. I don’t think he planned it. I think it was a sudden impulse, a whim in the heat of battle.”

  The windows of the carriage darkened as two enemy soldiers came up to Hayden. One spoke to him briefly while the other handed him a leather cup. He gave quiet orders, then rinsed his mouth out and spat on the ground.

  “This changes nothing, Archange,” he told her. “Our pact still stands. I will start to withdraw my army tomorrow.”

  “‘Start to’?” she repeated. “You invaded the City in a matter of hours. You will leave as quickly.”

  “I do not wish to stay in this charnel house, believe me. But we have far to travel and many wounded to consider.”

  “We have discussed this. We will keep your wounded safe if you leave your medics to care for them and for our own injured.”

  “I trust your word, lady. But I cannot trust your armies.”

  “Yet you must. As I must trust yours. There have been tales of rapine and looting,” she said.

  “And those men have been executed. They were all mercenaries. Our forthcoming war is a holy one. We will start it as we mean to proceed, with honour and justice.”

  Archange sighed and glanced at the two youngsters. The rider looked at Em and Elija as though seeing them for the first time. “Who are these?”

  “They are young relatives I am seeing to safety. Then I shall meet Marcus.”

  “I have been promised his army.”

  “And you will have it.” She sat forward. “Hayden. You have liberated our City. The people of the City will now help you free your own lands. You have my word. But with Araeon and Marcellus and Rafael all dead I have much to do. It will take a while for my own people to fill their places. We will meet at sunset, as we agreed. I will have Marcus with me.” She sat back and smoothed down her dress. “And his army.”

  “Who will be your first counsellor?”

  “A man called Dol Salida. He is an old soldier, like you, and a man of subtlety and intelligence. You will like him and you will be able to do business with him.”

  “And Araeon’s generals? Will you retain any?”

  “A few. Those promoted by Marcellus. Most are dead. And those that survived largely did so by running away. They were buffoons and are best forgotten. I have my own men.” She glanced at Em, who was taking in every word. “We will discuss this later.”

  He nodded and made to leave, then he turned back and said, “It is good to see you again, Archange.”

  She smiled. “And you, old friend,” she said.

  There was silence in the carriage as they listened to the Blues riding away.

  Em sorted through everything that had been said. “Who is Marcus?” she asked finally.

  “Marcus Rae Khan is a general and one of us, a Serafim.”

  Em thought of what had been said about generals, and she asked shyly, “Will Evan be made a general?”

  Archange snorted. “No, girl, he is far too valuable to me to waste.”

  She smiled and said, “You will find men talk a great deal about honour and loyalty, whether they are soldiers or merchants or lovers or thieves. Be careful. If a man speaks to you of his honour remember he is speaking from the most selfish part of his heart. Did Evan Broglanh use such words to bring you to his bed?”

  Em bowed her head a little and thought before she spoke, as she had seen Archange do. Then she asked, “Does that mean you do not trust your friend Hayden?”

  Archange smiled thinly. “I trust him to do what is in his best interests, which today are in line with mine.”

  She turned and punched the cushion behind her head and leaned back into it. “Now, be silent, girl. I have much to do today and I am no longer young.” She closed her eyes firmly.

  Em settled herself back and picked up the box lying on the seat beside her. Archange had entrus
ted it to her. It was carved of shining white wood, a thing of beauty. She held it on her lap and undid the tiny gold bolt. Inside the Gulon Veil shimmered as if alive. It was neatly folded to fit the box and two of its tiny figurines lay on top. They were the golden wyvern, made for Em by the goldsmith in Parting Street, and the glass rabbit Frayling had created. She stroked the little rabbit and tears welled in her eyes as she thought of Frayling.

  “Emly.”

  She looked up. Elija’s eyes were open and he was looking at her. Instantly she was on her knees beside him, holding his good hand in both of hers.

  “Where are we?” His brow furrowed as he gazed around the moving carriage. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re safe,” she assured him. “Safe,” she repeated. “The empress is going to take care of us.”

  He nodded, but she was sure he did not understand. His eyes closed and he drifted back to sleep. She sat holding his hand for a while, then her head drooped against his chest and Emly slept too.

  Epilogue

  They fled the City. They fled all cities. They crossed land and sea, moving lightly, keeping to the less-travelled roads, always racing from the past.

  The days were short when they reached the shore of a rocky island in the misty north, where summers were cool, winters bitter, and where the wind howled across the bleak flats all year round. The people of the island were wild and quiet, and they answered to no city or government, for the only powers they recognised were their harsh gods and the winter storms. They gazed sideways at the penniless newcomers, with their scars and their haunted eyes, but they left them alone. No one knew where they came from. No one cared.

  The man and woman found a house in the lee of the small graveyard, its mossy grey stones tilted by the winds. They saw the irony in it, but it was a quiet place, even for this island, and they were both comfortable with the dead.

  They never spoke about the past, and they were afraid to wish for the future. They spoke little together, and when they did it was of the movements of the weather, the changes of the sea. They were proud of their first crops, green seedlings pushing through the dark unforgiving soil, and the small fishing boat they built together on that first winter.

  It was spring when she fell sick, but it was only when her stomach became round and hard that they realised, with awe, that she was carrying a child. They had never thought it possible, with her wounds. It was a hard labour, but when the child slipped out, thin and bony as a leveret, and he saw it was a girl Fell wept for the first time since he was a child. The girl had her father’s sky blue eyes and black hair, and her mother’s temperament. She grew thin and strong on the harsh land and, as the years passed, she nursed their souls and healed their wounds…