by Tom Lloyd
He felt himself shaken awake and rolled onto his back. A hushed voice was speaking urgently above him. It sounded familiar. When he opened his eyes a whip-crack of pain flashed through his head.
The voice spoke again, a word he thought he recognised, but his mind was a mire. He tried to speak, but it came out only as a feeble moan.
‘Amber,’ the voice hissed, ‘Amber, you must wake up!’
He felt himself pulled into a seating position, but as soon as the pressure lessened he flopped back to the ground. The Land swam and blurred around him as he was hauled up again.
The voice didn’t give up. ‘Listen to me, Amber: you must listen.’
He was held steady, and now dim shapes slowly started forming before his eyes: a blank courtyard wall and a weathered face with light hair and a smear of mud on one cheek – a man he thought he’d once known.
The man crouched before him, maintaining a firm grip on his arms and staring hard into his eyes. ‘Amber, I need you on your feet.’
He didn’t move. He could not fathom the words washing over him, nor command his limbs to move.
In frustration the man shook him like a doll and clouted his boot to try and attract his attention. ‘On your feet, Amber – if you don’t get up now, you’re dead.’
He looked down at the boot the man had struck, then at the man’s own bare feet: they were mismatched. One was normal, the other a squat lump with fat little toes. The sight sparked something in his mind, causing him to flinch even as he said a name: ‘Nai.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ the man said encouragingly. He cast a nervous glance to one side before returning his attention to the stricken man. ‘Now you, your name is Amber – remember? Say it, say “Amber”.’
His first attempt came out as garbled nonsense as panic filled his mind. Name? My name …
His head snapped back as Nai slapped him hard across the face. ‘Say it, Amber. Say it.’
‘Ahh— Amber,’ he gasped as tears spilled from his eyes and without knowing why he started to keen softly until Nai struck him again, then grabbed his head to keep his attention focused.
‘There’s no time for that. Don’t think, just do as I say, soldier! Your name is Amber, do you understand me? Your name is Amber and you need to get on your feet.’ Without waiting for a response Nai arranged Amber’s feet so they were flat on the ground, then stood on them and hauled on the big soldier’s arms.
Amber felt himself lurch forward, but he was unable to do anything to help, instead concentrating on the one word he understood, the name he clung to with the desperation of a drowning man. He nearly toppled onto Nai, but the smaller man caught him in time and held him balanced.
‘A little help would be useful right about now,’ Nai muttered as he manoeuvred himself around and underneath Amber’s right arm. Before he tried to stand he grabbed Amber’s lost scimitar and slid it back into the scabbard on his back, then gave him a pat on the shoulder.
‘Now, push upwards,’ he said. ‘I can’t carry you all the way.’
Nai forced himself upright, and Amber felt his legs respond to the movement and straighten. For a moment he was standing tall before he slumped back down onto Nai.
‘Good,’ Nai puffed, ‘but we’d better try that again. I can’t carry you out of the city.’
‘I— I’ve lost—’
‘You’ve lost a name, yes, I know,’ Nai said in a softer tone. ‘It was stolen from you – it was stolen from us all, but you felt it worse than anyone.’
‘Wh … ?’ Amber tailed off, defeated by the effort of thinking as a swirl of unformed questions clouded his mind.
‘Now’s really not the time for that conversation. Come on, try to take a step forward.’ He leaned forward, trying to make Amber move his feet and take his own weight. The right drifted a little and caught on the ground until Nai knocked it with his instep and got his boot flat on the ground again. This time Amber moved forward on instinct and the weight across Nai’s shoulder’s lessened a touch.
‘That’s good, now one more,’ he said encouragingly, and the pair began to make painfully slow progress across the courtyard.
Once they reached the gate Nai stopped and looked up at Amber. ‘You’re not strong enough yet, but I need you moving quicker than that or we’re both dead.’ He edged Amber to the wall and leaned him against it to take some of the weight off his shoulders, but a moment later a second voice broke the quiet.
‘Hey, who’re you?’
Nai turned to see a man with long blond hair standing inside the half-open gate to the courtyard: a Byoran labourer, by the way he was dressed, holding a cudgel in his hands. The man peered forward, his eyes slowly widening as he looked at Amber.
‘That’s a damned …‘ The man didn’t bother finishing his sentence but raised his weapon and headed towards them.
Nai saw a flicker of surprise in the man’s face as he advanced with his own empty hands outstretched.
The Byoran got ready to smash Nai in the face with his cudgel, but before he had fully raised his weapon, a flash of light erupted from Nai’s palms into the man’s face. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air and the man reeled, dropping the cudgel and clapping his hands to his cheeks.
Nai kept moving, drawing a dagger from his belt and punching the tip into the man’s stomach, then tilting it upwards and driving it towards his heart. Then he withdrew it and ran the blade across his throat, just to make sure. The Byoran fell without a further sound and lay spasming on the ground.
Nai bent and wiped the blade clean on the man’s shirt before he sheathed the weapon and eased the courtyard door shut again. Amber hadn’t moved throughout the brief struggle, and when Nai returned to him he didn’t seem to have even noticed it. He stood a little taller now, holding one hand on the wall to steady himself, but Nai could see he was still in no condition to walk down the street yet, let alone run.
‘Another turn about the grounds then?’ He asked as he slipped under Amber’s arm and turned the soldier around. He spared a look at the corpse on the ground, a small trail of blood making its way towards the courtyard wall. ‘Let’s just hope you prove useful enough to make this worthwhile.’
Struck by a thought, Nai stopped and passed a hand across Amber’s face, muttering arcane words under his breath as he did so. After half a minute he stopped. ‘At least the link’s still there,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not sure who will be glad to see a Menin soldier after today, but King Emin might be able to use you to track down his turncoat, Ilumene. It isn’t much of a choice, but it’s the best one you’re likely to get, and a man in my profession could always use a king owing him a favour.’
Amber still didn’t respond and Nai’s expression turned pitying. ‘Gods, your parents wouldn’t have expected this when they named you for your lordly, albeit distant, relation – who could have? That was one of the odder sensations in my life, I think, having a name plucked from my mind – and it didn’t even involve necromancy! This life’s full of surprises, but let’s just be glad no one’s used your real name since you joined the army, otherwise I think you’d be on the ground, and undoubtedly crippled.’
He paused a moment, wincing, and had to blink away a sudden unpleasant sense of disjointed loss. ‘How curious: it’s uncomfortable to even try and remember – very uncomfortable. Well, no matter; he must be dead by now, and I can think of him as the Menin lord easily enough.’
He patted Amber on the shoulder again and directed him back across the courtyard. ‘And you, my friend; you’re still Major Amber, so not much has changed there really – except you’re a major in an army currently being obliterated, and you’re as fragile as a baby. Just as well I can think of a use for you, and a certain king who might pay rather well for that use.’
They started walking, short, shuffling steps away from the courtyard gate. ‘Don’t worry,’ Nai added with forced brightness, ‘you can thank me for saving your life later. Once I’ve sold you to the enemy.’
CHAPT
ER 2
Doranei awoke with a whimper from dreams of sapphire eyes. Lost in dark corridors, exhausted and afraid, he’d followed the faint scent of her perfume for an age and more – walking deep in the bowels of some unknown castle, through bloodless corpses and shit while dead Menin soldiers reached at him from the shadows.
Somehow he’d kept himself upright, prising cold grasping fingers from his flesh and beating them away. They’d decayed before his eyes but more rose in their place until his limbs screamed with pain and he could scarcely breathe. When Doranei woke the ache of exertion intensified and he lay there for a long while, barely able to move, every shallow breath feeling like a knife slashing down his ribcage.
‘Don’t complain! At least you’re alive.’
With a groan he rolled himself onto one side to face the speaker. Veil sat slumped in an armchair, a handful of other members of the Brotherhood asleep on the ground nearby.
‘Did you hear me complain?’ Doranei said, wincing as he spoke. He’d survived the battle virtually unscathed, just four or five minor nicks and a whole ton of bruises.
‘You were about to.’ There was no humour in Veil’s voice, no space for anything more than weariness. He wore a fresh shirt and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but neither hid the bandage encasing the stump where his hand had once been.
Thank the Gods it was his left, Doranei thought again, his eyes lingering on the injured limb until Veil tugged the blanket over it. Veil had tied his dark hair neatly back, but like the rest of them he’d had no chance yet to wash out the blood and mud.
‘How is it?’
‘Hurts like a bastard.’ Veil tried to smile, or maybe he grimaced, Doranei couldn’t tell which. ‘Hopefully not for much longer. Tremal said he smelled opium in the night – went to steal it for me.’
Doranei nodded absently. He struggled to rise, using the wall to steady himself, and stood staring down at his feet until he decided he could trust them. Diffuse sunlight shining through a window on the right told him he’d clearly slept long past dawn, however little actual rest he’d managed. His stinking, sweat-and blood-stiffened tunic was still lying on the floor, where he’d dropped it with his armour. He picked it up and inspected the stains. ‘Heard one o’ the king’s clerks say it’d be quicker to count the living than the dead.’ He looked up. ‘A sour kind of victory, this. I ain’t one for praying much, but I’ll kiss the feet o’ any God can see to it I never witness that again.’
‘Aye, nor lose so many Brothers again,’ Veil added. ‘Ain’t many of us left to make good on the bet.’
‘Bet? Who won?’ Doranei shook his head as sadness filled his heart. The Brotherhood would bet on almost anything – it was one way to cope with the strange, dangerous life they led; one way to remember those they lost along the way. After yesterday’s slaughter, even a veteran of the Brotherhood found it hard to believe anyone cared to collect on the wager.
‘That fucking loud-mouth white-eye,’ Veil said.
‘Isak? He didn’t kill—’ Doranei scowled as the ache behind his eyes increased. ‘He didn’t kill the Menin lord, whatever we’re telling the Land.’
‘Not Isak, the Mad Axe – that bastard was dragged out o’ the north ditch just before sundown, half-dead and brains scrambled but still claiming his win. Turns out he killed the general attacking that flank, Vrill, Duke Anote Vrill.’
Doranei sighed and slipped his complaining arms through the sleeves of his tunic. He left the armour on the floor but buckled on his weapons-belt, now holding only the ancient sword he’d taken from Aracnan’s corpse. Then he stood still for a moment, letting Veil’s words filter into his exhausted mind. ‘Wonderful,’ he said finally, stirring himself to hunt through his pack for the cigars he thought he’d left there. ‘So now I get to live the rest o’ my life with some fucking white-eye’s name tattooed on my arse.’ He lit one from the coals and headed outside.
He squinted at the weak sun as he gingerly wove a path through the makeshift camp in the grounds of Moorview Castle. He stopped outside the walls on the slope that led down to the moor, brought up short by the chaos of the previous day.
There were three great pits, one still being dug. The first was already filled with bodies and wood from the forest and a column of dirty smoke was rising high in the windless sky. Images from the battle flashed before his eyes: friends falling as the Menin threw themselves forward with frenzied abandon. The Brotherhood had lost half their number, a shocking proportion that was matched or exceeded by at least a dozen legions.
‘Brother Doranei.’ Suzerain Derenin sat on the sloping grass to Doranei’s left, his back against the wall of his castle. His right arm was in a sling and he winced as he gestured to the ground beside him with the spherical bottle he held in his left. ‘Join me.’
‘Got any food?’ Doranei asked as he eased himself down beside the Lord of Moorview. Whatever was in the bottle smelled more potent than wine
Suzerain Derenin shook his head. ‘Couldn’t stomach it.’ He was muscular, both bigger and younger than Doranei, his long limbs and broad shoulders well-suited to battle, but he’d still been so exhausted he’d almost crawled out of the fort once the last Menin had fallen.
‘Your first real battle, right? You sure can pick ’em.’
Doranei received only a grunt in reply, and when he took the bottle from Derenin he saw tears glisten in the man’s eyes. ‘Don’t matter who tells you what to expect, nothing prepares a man for what he sees on a battlefield, and that …’ He tailed off. None of the Narkang men had seen anything like it, experienced or not. Scree had been a place of horror and slaughter, sure enough, but it was the Farlan and Devoted troops who’d seen the worst of it. And they’d got off lightly, he now realised.
There were tens of thousands of men lying dead out there on the moor. Someone had guessed at fifty thousand, but others thought the figure higher. And a great many of those who survived the battle would have died in the night of their wounds. Bodies were lying everywhere, despite the efforts of the gangs working to drag the dead into those great pits. The earth was stained rusty-red, and the stink of death was rising with the clouds of flies.
‘Can’t get the taste out the back of my mouth,’ Suzerain Derenin muttered. ‘No matter what I try to wash it away with.’
‘Try this.’ Doranei proffered his cigar. ‘Covers up most stinks that can be covered.’
He watched Derenin puff away at it, grimacing at the unfamiliar taste but drawing all the harder on it for that. ‘You fought well,’ Doranei said. ‘There’s not much to feel proud about when you’re treading on the faces of the dead and sticky with their blood, but you were a hero yesterday. Never forget that.’
‘I won’t,’ he murmured. ‘It’s right there with the screams of men I’ve known my whole life – men who were only in that hell-pit because of me.’
‘I’ve got no answers for you,’ Doranei replied wearily. ‘There’s no justice in war, no consolation. My best friend died before the battle of the Byoran Fens – you know why? Because we tossed a coin and he got unlucky. Much as I hate myself for it, that’s all there is, and no amount of blame’ll change that.’
‘And life goes on,’ the nobleman said bitterly, wincing as he shifted slightly. ‘I’ve heard men say that half-a-dozen times already this morning.’
‘It’s the only truth we know. You got the luck o’ the draw, others didn’t. I ain’t claiming to have worked this out myself, but all you can do is mourn and keep on living.’ Doranei paused and looked at the battlefield. When he spoke again it was with a firm nod of the head, as though he was still having to remind himself that what he said was true. ‘If I meet Sebe on the slopes of Ghain and he asks me how I lived the life won on that toss of a coin, I better have a good answer for him. Hard as it might be, we got to try.’
He hauled himself up again and started on down the stepped gardens into the small forest of tents pitched on the moor’s edge. To the right was a second, smaller camp where the wo
rst-injured of the prisoners were; anyone able to walk was out on the moor dragging bodies into the pits. The prisoners were a mixed lot, mainly Menin as most of their allies had fled when they felt the Menin lord’s name ripped from their minds. Some, unable to escape, had surrendered; only the Menin élite had fought to the death, but it did mean there was no chance of pursuit.
He walked forward, drawn without thinking towards the fort where he’d made his stand at the king’s side. He was still not sure how they’d survived that crazed assault. He felt his hands start to shake as he neared it. When he reached the mound where Cetarn had sacrificed himself, his legs gave way and he sank to his knees, feeling the anguish build up inside him, but the tears would not come; no matter how much he craved the release, the outpouring of grief, it wouldn’t come.
At a sound behind him Doranei gave a cry of alarm and tried to turn and draw his sword, but his body betrayed him and he staggered sideways, waving the weapon drunkenly until he used it to steady himself on the uneven ground. The group of soldiers behind him were enlisted men, wearing the Narkang legion’s uniform.
‘My apologies, sir,’ said the nearest, tugging frantically at his greasy curls of hair, ‘din’t mean to disturb you, sir.’
Doranei wavered and his vision blurred for a moment before he was able to pull himself together. ‘I— Ah, no, it doesn’t matter. What do you want?’
The man glanced back at his comrades. The lot of them were caked in mud and blood, and several were very obviously injured. ‘Well, sir, we was hopin’ you’d tell us what happened.’
Doranei tried to grin. ‘We won, didn’t you hear? Can’t you smell the glory?’
The soldier winced and bobbed his head again. ‘Aye, sir, we all felt his name taken, but no one knows what happened – some said the Gods themselves must’ve—’