Steadfast didn’t say anything for a moment, but he narrowed his eyes. ‘When did they take your aunt?’
‘An hour ago, perhaps two.’
‘How did you get down here so quickly? Who let you use a palanquin?’
‘We slipped out the back while they were busy with her, and flagged one down on the second,’ Leon lied, neatly but too late. ‘Why does any of this matter now?’
‘By the gods,’ Steadfast said, rising suddenly, ‘I’m a fool.’
It was the product of instinct and of need, not of conscious forethought. Calla was sitting in her chair and then she was standing, and then the fractured top half of the ceramic flagon was powdered across Steadfast’s skull. She was altogether shocked at the audacity of her own behaviour, though presumably not quite so shocked as Steadfast himself, who had collapsed backwards over his chair and now lay supine, groaning piteously.
Leon was the only one of the three who seemed unsurprised by the development, already out of his seat and moving quickly round to the other side of the desk. ‘It was neatly struck, Calla,’ he said, unwinding the bandage from his injured hand and gagging Steadfast tightly with it. ‘Now if you would be so kind as to bring me the sash from that window curtain.’
But Calla stared down at her victim for a long time before answering. ‘What for?’ she said finally.
‘At this point we need either to bind or kill him, and there should be enough blood for all of us come the evening.’
When they walked out of his office a few minutes later they did so hand in hand, moving upslope at a swift clip. ‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ Leon reminded her, ‘we are two lovers out for an afternoon stroll, there is nothing that concerns us, no need for such haste.’
‘Did you not hear what he said? The attack is about to begin, we’ve no time to waste!’
‘I heard him very clearly,’ Leon said through a false smile, wrapping her arm round his neatly. ‘There is little enough we can do about it regardless – certainly getting murdered on our way upslope will not assist in the furtherance of our cause.’
And seeing the wisdom of this Calla managed to fall into his rhythm, though every moment she was certain there would be alarm, some cry of warning and then the entire Rung would descend upon them, the bent porters and the mean-eyed youths, though by the time they were out of sight of the docks Calla began to feel a slow ebbing of her terror.
It returned in force with the thick scent of smoke that struck her as she came within sight of the Fourth Rung, the scent of smoke and the distant sound of battle. Calla had no idea who Pyre was, but the hour of the Kite was long past, and whatever he had set in motion, it seemed, had already begun. On the Third the smoke was thinner, but still an occasional scream reached them on the wind. On the Second there were Cuckoos everywhere, it seemed, posted at the intersections of every major thoroughfare, though their presence did little to reassure Calla, indeed quite the opposite – because looking at them in their shapeless blue robes and their cudgels, readying themselves for war, swinish faces, pink hands, looking well-fed and nervous, Calla felt certain that if these men were responsible for the safety of the Roost then things were very bad, things were very bad indeed.
By the time they had made it to Leon’s quarters evening had fallen, Calla’s legs ached and her throat was dry and she was too exhausted to feel fear. Leon closed the door firmly behind her and locked it, a flimsy defence but it was as much as they had. He poured a glass of wine and handed it to her absently. ‘An attack on the First itself, by the gods,’ Leon said, and he seemed, in a strange sort of way, almost happy. ‘She dares anything, my aunt. Anything.’
‘Madness,’ Calla said, very much wanting to believe it. ‘What force of men would be large enough to capture the First Rung?’
‘Not ten thousand men,’ Leon admitted, ‘but they don’t need to capture it, they need only distract Those Above long enough for our army to reach the gates below.’
‘Will it work?’
‘Eudokia thinks it can, clearly. And she is not wrong often enough to make it wise to bet against her. The more relevant question is, what can we do about it?’
‘We go to the Prime,’ Calla said. ‘Your actions in defence of the Roost will outweigh your aunt’s guilt, I’m certain.’
‘And tell him what? He will learn of the attack soon enough, Calla, it may already have happened, he may already know. As for my aunt’s involvement, I cannot imagine he will be in any ignorance of that either.’ Leon took Calla’s empty glass, refilled it, did the same for his own cup, though another few seconds more and it was once again empty. ‘I am sorry, Calla,’ he said, wine dampening his pale beard, all trace of his elation gone entirely. ‘She was only a day ahead of us, but a day in such matters is a mile in a footrace. There is nothing left to be done but watch it all play out.’
Calla turned to stare out the window at the city below. Outside the window the Second Rung continued as it always had, unaware that their world was ending, and ending soon. People decent, or as decent as they could be, kind to their families and their acquaintances, most of them. They lived atop the bones of the less fortunate, but in this at least, Eudokia had not been wrong – everyone does, in some fashion or another, and the struggle is ultimately to extend their happiness further and further downslope, not to upend it entirely, not to see the world consumed in flames.
‘There is still a chance,’ Calla said quietly, saying it as if she believed it though she was not sure she did. ‘Your aunt has never understood the Roost. She thinks, they all think, that it is only the Eternal. But it is not. There are those in the Roost who would struggle to destroy it, and perhaps they are not fools to try, perhaps what they have suffered justifies and even demands it. But there are those as well who would fight to save it, there are many of us, I am not alone. The Roost is not the hell that the Five-Fingered suppose it to be. There is suffering and injustice here, but there is beauty, and decency, too, and it would be better to salvage what can be saved than see the entire thing made ruin. We Roostborn are not so weak as the Revered Mother supposes. We would give aid, if called upon – a citizens’ militia, one to match that which has been raised downslope. Properly armed, it might allow us to check your aunt’s machinations, at least long enough for Those Above to defend against the army at our gates.’
‘And who would give you the chance?’
‘If the attack comes tonight, then tomorrow morning the Prime will call a meeting of the Conclave, to organise a response. I will broach the subject myself – according to their custom, and in their own tongue. Staring at annihilation, they will see the necessity of change. They will have to see,’ she said. ‘I will make them see.’
36
The enemy looked more like mummers than soldiers, blue summer robes that would offer no protection against blade or arrow, carrying a length of timber with a ratchet attached to the end, whirring it furiously and impotently, the buzzing grating but far from mortal. The first had been drawn a few moments after Bas had unfurled the great flag that now towered over the Spire; two of them in fact, the Empty Throne of Aeleria and below it a stretch of black canvas with a five-fingered imprint. Curiosity turned swiftly to horror, but they stalled there, failing to move on to action, precious time being lost as they tried to comprehend what had happened, as they reached out to the Others to explain it, as the system, not meant for speed under the best of circumstances, strained to operate. By the hour of the Woodcock dusk was beginning to fall across the city and there were a few hundred of these Cuckoos milling about, trying to work up the courage for a suicidal frontal assault against the Spire.
Hamilcar ran his hand up along the wall of the keep. ‘By the gods, have you ever seen anything like this?’
Bas grunted.
‘It’s smooth as sea glass. I’ve been looking for an hour and I can’t find the seam. It can’t possibly all be one piece, can it?’
Bas was less impressed with the aesthetics of the Perpetual Spire than he was
its defensibility. The only entrance was through a long, roofless gatehouse, the pathway now festooned with caltrops and traps. It opened up on a small courtyard, now barricaded, and three hundred-odd hoplitai. The tower itself jutted up seemingly for ever; looking at the steeple Bas felt himself grow dizzy. Impossible to imagine the entire thing going fallow, the whole vast edifice left to rot, floor upon floor without even a caretaker, but there it was. Without intending to the demons had allowed them a foothold in the very heart of their city. ‘Is that the only thing you have to think about right now?’ Bas asked gruffly.
They stood on a sort of balcony, which circled fully around the third storey of the tower. It offered a good view of the Roost below, and it offered Hamilcar and his men an ideal line of fire for anyone trying to retake it. No, Bas had to admit, it was an eminently defensible spot, you could scarce have dreamed up a better. Without siege engines it would take an army of ten thousand men to force it, and even then the contest would be uncertain. Ten thousand men or how many demons?
‘We’ll know they’re coming when they stop whirling those damn noisemakers,’ Hamilcar grumbled. ‘You are sure they have no bows?’
‘They have no bows.’
‘Why?’
‘The Others do not kill from afar. They think it beneath them.’
‘And the humans?’
‘Are not allowed weapons.’
‘What sort of a place is this?’
Bas did not have an answer. His new adjutant returned from the front barricades, queried Bas on a number of minor issues, then saluted and went back downstairs. Staurakios, his name was, a competent man of the Thirteenth, though Bas found himself wishing that he had Isaac there to rely upon. Twenty years had made for a shorthand between them that was near to telepathy, and this was not the moment for miscue or error.
‘What’s that?’ Hamilcar asked, pointing towards a distant portion of the skyline.
Squinting, Bas could make it out, a sphere of white and gold that caught the last rays of the afternoon sun and threw them back twice as bright, but his ignorance allowed for no answer. ‘I have no idea.’
But Hamilcar would not be put off. ‘Like some … gigantic fountain.’ His bow was ashwood, with silver rattan, and it hung limply at his side. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’
‘You know I haven’t.’
‘Can you imagine how long it must have taken to build any of this?’
‘Now’s hardly the time for playing tourist. They’re mustering to charge.’
And indeed they were. The noisemakers had finally gone silent, as if doing so would obscure their intentions. It was not the guards’ sole sign of incompetence; indeed it was matched by every other aspect of the attack, which went forward only by the loud haranguing of their leader. Bas did not know the language but he could guess the thrust of it, something about home and country, and beneath that the presumed certainty that the demons would look with disfavour on cowardice. It proved sufficient to send a rough hundred men sprinting down the narrow entranceway, but it was fitful, desultory, it was an assault by men prepared altogether to see their efforts end in failure. Hamilcar waited until a mass of them clogged the narrow corridor and then he gave the signal, the first volley finding purchase in tight-packed flesh, the guards screaming, bleeding, dying, fleeing – those who could flee at least. The hoplitai below shouted their contempt, and waited for a few minutes to see if another charge would be forthcoming, though Bas knew that it would not.
And now to the other sounds of the evening, to the beat of the noisemakers and the crickets, were added the ragged screams of the wounded. To Bas’s mind there was nothing that more thoroughly proved the uselessness of the city guard than that the survivors made no effort to save their wounded comrades, the more lightly wounded limping or crawling back to safety, the rest loudly lamenting the bitterness of their fate.
Bas did not care for cities, though he had seen more of them than any man who wasn’t a sailor or a diplomat; seen the great cathedrals and mansions of Aeleria, the wide streets and the wretched and miserable poor that lived on them. Had seen Dycia, though only after he had helped to burn and loot it, the great temple aflame, stained windows bursting from the heat, endless wealth spilled out into the streets like blood from punctured flesh. But Bas had never seen anything like this. Bas had never dreamed that there were such things as this. Of course Bas was not a dreamer, in fact he had come to realise over the years that he was quite the least imaginative man in existence, as if the gods had decreed its lack in compensation for the many qualities that he possessed to a super- or near superhuman degree. But even if he had been a poet or a minstrel, Bas did not think he could have imagined such beauty. Trying to describe it, even to himself, Bas found he could only compare it to other, unrelated things – a woman dancing, rich autumn foliage shaken loose in a crisp breeze, the crackle of a warm fire, the distant and half-recalled touch of his mother.
At the Nightjar’s hour an Eternal finally arrived; Bas could read it in the complexion of the troop of city guard as if on the face of a second-rate cardplayer. They did not cheer but they stood up straighter, putting up a front. He caught a glimpse of her and his heart beat so rapid in his chest that for a moment he thought it would burst, and then he blinked and squinted and it returned gradually to normal.
‘She looks a great deal like yours,’ Hamilcar observed.
‘They all look the same,’ Bas said, though it wasn’t true.
The Eternal who was not the Sentinel of the Southern Reach, a neighbour perhaps, or just someone who happened to be passing by, stood for a long time before the entrance to the Spire, at the extreme edge of bow range. When she came forward it was without warning and with preternatural speed, as fast as a galloping horse or very nearly, the first volley of arrows mistimed, finding only her footprints. She was unarmoured and barely armed, nothing but a borrowed truncheon with which to assault the array of hoplitai before her, but they did not know fear, the demons, or at least they did not show it. She made it to the top of the barricade with one leap, as a child might stone-step across a stream, looking down at the mass of men below with vague disdain. Sprinting down the length of the parapet, graceful steps along the narrows, the club falling and rising and rising and falling, skulls shattering, teeth scattered into the dust, hoplitai screaming. A thrust half-pike was grabbed just below the tip, ripped from the hand of its wielder, brought in a wide scattering arch against Bas’s soldiers, drawing blood and snapping from the force of the blow. The feather that appeared suddenly in her shoulder proved no impediment to her movement; indeed she seemed not even to notice it, her cudgel breaking against the skull of a hoplitai, the cudgel and the skull as well, but she noticed the second arrow, tearing through the soft flesh of her cheek and out against the back of her jaw, barbed arrowhead pinning her head against her shoulder, distracting her just long enough for a pike to enter the flesh below her knee. Collapsing forward into the scrum, not screaming because they never screamed but still fighting, one four-fingered hand grabbing the head of a hoplitai on the way down, crushing it as an egg, and then the unavoidable press of men, the downward fall of a short blade, a hand severed, the corpse lost in the mass.
With the death of the first Eternal the hoplitai let loose a roar of triumph, blood-soaked and savage, and after not so long a moment the head appeared atop a half-pike, eyes of uniform cerulean staring back at the city she had once owned. Bas was used to the cruelty of men and paid no attention, occupied by other tasks, doing the grim maths in his head: eight men, maybe ten it had taken to bring her down, and she neither armed nor armoured. What happened when they came with their Roost-forged steel, with their many-headed lances, with their swords so long and so sharp?
Hamilcar’s face was ashen black and unsmiling. ‘She was faster than your Sentinel.’
‘She was faster than the Sentinel let us think,’ Bas said, wiping sweat off his face, an absurd moment of vainglory for a creature who hoped to see him dead.
‘I have never seen anything move so fast. How many of them are there?’
‘Thousands.’
‘Thousands?’
Bas did not repeat himself.
And yet they did not come. They did not come! The sun passed away entirely, evening taking full grip of the cityscape, the hoplitai reinforcing the barricades higher and ever higher, the Cuckoos milling about uncertainly like eunuchs outside a whorehouse. Against the damp ochre light of the street lamps was mixed a faint but growing crimson, as the promised bands of partisans in the city continued their brutal business, raids on the custodians and the other forces of order, anarchy blooming swiftly across the metropolis.
‘They burn their own city?’ Hamilcar asked.
‘It seems so.’
‘These are lovely allies we’ve acquired. They reek of madness like an outhouse reeks of shit.’
‘They’ve done a competent job so far.’
‘Fanatics fight well,’ Hamilcar admitted, ‘and die better. That is the sum extent of their ability.’
‘Do we need them to do more than that?’
‘We don’t. Though if I were a citizen of the Roost, I might find myself wondering about what sort of city they’re likely to be living in come the morrow.’
‘You aren’t a citizen of the Roost,’ Bas said, the two of them leaning over the edge of the balcony and none else within earshot, ‘nor it is likely you’ll live to see the morrow.’
‘It doesn’t look promising, does it?’
Bas spat over the side in answer. The night was clear, the views of the constellations unobscured by cloud, the cluster of lights reflecting from the city below, which seemed the mirror and the obverse of the sky’s naked glory.
Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Page 29