Pyre could not say, Pyre did not know. Pyre stalked through the city as if through the body of some ancient dying god, its viscera and intestines and sweetmeats on display, the raw rich red flesh rendered skinless and visible. He had one hand on his short sword and his eyes were wounded pinpricks of open hate, and the thugs and petty bandits gave him a wide berth.
Pyre had been in front of Edom’s safe house for a long time before he realised that was where he was standing. A building on the Third, nothing important about it except what it held, part of the elaborate shell game that Pyre had been playing for the better part of two years, since being made responsible for the security of the Five-Fingered, since being made responsible for the security of Edom, the First of His Line.
Two hard knocks, two soft knocks, one final blow with his full fist, the door shuddering in response. It opened swiftly to reveal an expectant Redemption, who smiled when he saw Pyre, smiled and offered the salute, though Pyre did not return it.
‘Brother Pyre,’ he said, ‘We’ve had no news – how is the war downslope? Have you heard anything of our brothers outside the walls? Or on the First?’
Pyre brushed inside. Only meant to be used for a few days during the rebellion, the house was mostly unfurnished, and the large parlour that Pyre had entered was empty except for a rough wooden table, occupied by three members of the Dead Pigeons, brothers to Pyre in all but name, trusted implicitly and implicitly trusting. ‘Victorious on all fronts,’ he said in a curiously neutral monotone, and before this announcement gave way to general jubilation he asked, ‘Where is Edom?’
‘On the top floor, with Steadfast,’ Redemption answered. ‘He is unable to sleep.’
‘Grim is gathering men,’ Pyre said quietly. ‘Gather your weapons and join him at his headquarters on the Fourth.’
‘Where on the fourth?’
‘At the Hallowed Gate, near the Sweetwater canal. Do you know it?’
‘Yes.’ Redemption had been Dormouse, a lanky youth from the Straights, and Pyre had sworn him in to the Five-Fingered, Pyre had made the cut and said the words, Pyre had cheered loudest when he had taken on his new name. For two years he had followed Pyre’s orders with obedient joy, and he struggled to turn against custom. ‘This was not part of the plan.’
‘Who makes the plan?’
‘You do, Brother Pyre,’ Redemption said, the moment of uncertainty past. A good soldier Redemption, as Pyre had been. ‘Until the age to come.’
To come, to come, always to come. Edom’s guards left swiftly, pursuing their phantom errand downslope, and the door had not shut before Pyre was ascending the back staircase.
Steadfast stood outside the entrance to Edom’s cell, a swelling bruise on his temple, and now that he could finally admit it to himself Pyre hated him as much as he had ever hated anyone, near as much as he had hated the Four-Fingered or the custodians, simpering and obsequious and without purpose, a parasite. You could speak of the unity of the species, but cannot a man hate his brother? Steadfast opened his mouth to say something, something cowardly most likely, superior and condescending, and Pyre’s blade slipped free of his sheath and then across a throat, one swift motion as Rhythm had taught Thistle in those years long ago. Steadfast died quickly. Steadfast died easily. Steadfast died as men die. Pyre barely noticed, the corpse sliding to his feet. He did not bother even to clean his blade, stepping over the body and opening the door.
A small room in the high corner of the building, a not particularly lovely view of the Third Rung beyond. Edom sat beside the window, looking down at what he had caused – he and Pyre, now that it was perhaps not a question of pride but of guilt Pyre could admit to that, could recognise his part in the thing, though it was a small one, though it had never been more than as a puppet or perhaps a hunting hound, duty done and then back in the kennels.
‘My son,’ Edom said, in that same rich voice which had instructed and explained, which had forgiven, which had offered purpose and meaning to lives which had never known either. ‘I give you greeting on the first day of the new epoch, at the beginning of the future you have fought so hard to see.’
‘Not the beginning,’ Pyre said, the sword in his right hand weeping blood onto Edom’s floor, Edom unaware of or uninterested by the threat, or at least giving no sign of it. ‘The end.’
‘Every beginning is an end. Today will be the beginning of an age undreamed of by your fathers, who knew only slavery and subjugation. And today will be the end of the demons, and of the perversion they have created.’
‘Not the demons only,’ Pyre said ‘Not the demons alone.’
From the open window could be heard a distant scream, like the trilling of a summer lark, evidence of some minor and unnoticed atrocity, one of the countless infinity that were playing out across the Roost.
‘You’ve been listening to the lies of that Aelerian whore,’ Edom said, the profanity unexpected and out of character, the first evidence of concern. ‘I had thought you cleverer than that.’
‘The truth comes to those who will hear it,’ Pyre said quietly.
‘And what is the truth, Pyre so wise? Do inform me, please.’
‘That you are no prophet,’ Pyre said, ‘and I only chief among fools. The word, the Five-Fingered, all of it nothing but a ploy to bring the Roost beneath the sway of the Aelerians. The Dead Pigeons nothing but deluded foot soldiers of the Commonwealth, dying to expand their empire.’
A second scream, and the smile that had slipped off Edom’s face returned. ‘It would be a simpler thing if that was the case, and you always did prefer simplicity. But it is not, Pyre. My word filled the empty stomachs of thousands, my word gave meaning and purpose to men who had none. Without my word you’d be a downslope thug, no different than any other, a thief and a murderer.’
‘And what am I now, Edom? If I had spent a lifetime as a criminal I could not have dreamed of such savagery as I have seen this night.’
‘What do you imagine a newborn looks like? Powdered and perfumed, burbling in joyous contentment? In blood it comes, choking and gasping for air, its first sensation pain, its first instinct fear. And yet that babe will grow to manhood, that babe will do things of greatness and of value. As will this new age, Pyre, the First of His Line. As will this new age.’
So far Pyre’s voice had been low and unsteady, and his sword hung limp at his side, but at this last line it flew up suddenly, scattering Steadfast’s blood to the far corner of the room. ‘Lies!’ he screamed. ‘You would say anything for another few seconds of life. There is nothing to you but falsehood!’
‘Still a child, after everything you’ve done, black and white, and nothing in between.’ Edom shook his head and leaned for a moment towards the window. ‘From where I stand just now, Pyre, I can see an alleyway, and the back of a building, and the teasing first light of dawn. If I stood somewhere else, I’d see something different. There is not truth, Pyre, there are only truths, particular rather than universal.’
‘Yes, the particular and nothing but – Edom and Edom alone the only thing of importance. You would have me dead,’ Pyre said, hating the quiver in his voice and continuing over it roughly. ‘You sold me to the demons because you thought I might threaten to overtake you as first slave to the Aelerians! Such slaughter, such blood, and it will change nothing! Nothing!’ Pyre was screaming every word though Edom accepted it unflinching, his smile like a Roost-forged shield. ‘We’ve traded one yoke for another!’
‘What did you suppose? That the new age would be a golden one, bereft of misfortune, of inequality, of pain or of suffering? That you could murder your way into paradise?’ Edom shook his great leonine head, the smile stretching to fill it. ‘The new world will be the same as the old. The weak and the foolish and the ill-fortuned will suffer, the strong and the cruel will flourish. Those Above will die, and Those Below, or some portion of them, will take their place, will rise to the first Rung and rule with no greater kindness than their predecessors. Paradise for some, a hell f
or others. As it was, as it will be. The Roost will be the greatest city in Aeleria, and you will be chancellor, or mayor or whatever they decide to call you. Wealth undreamed of, an entire castle for you, and an army of slaves, sleeping where the demons slept, eating where they—’
He was speaking as the steel entered his flesh and even continued on for an instant thereafter, though the words were garbled and indistinct. And who could blame him? This man whom life had taught that if he could only talk long enough he might convince anyone of anything, might convince the canals to run upward, the mountain to crumble, the blood not to seep through his wound.
This last at least was false. When the light went finally from Edom’s eyes he was close enough for Pyre to taste his dying breath, the misery and the fear. Through the window, sanguine and bright, spilled the first morning of the new age, indistinct from that which had preceded it.
42
The last sun Bas would ever see rose high and clear in the sky, flooded the valley with light, rendering each detail fine and clear, neither cloud cover nor illusion left to obscure his vision. From atop his mount at the of the vanguard he could make out the ranks of cavalry, the packed force of the Eternal, the final charge of Those Above. Could see the strange and exotic curves of their armour, like holiday masks or the drawings of a lunatic. Could see their lances, many-pronged and each the length of a short sword but far sharper. Behind them the Roost rose in the distance, riches unknowable and vast, an array of wealth that Bas would never hold and would not have known what to do with had he grasped it.
‘They look magnificent,’ Nikephoros said. ‘They know they’re dying.’ The interim head of the Thirteenth had made no difficulties over Bas’s reassuming his title. It was only appropriate that the Caracal would be here for the end – it was part of the gathering magnificence of the moment, one of which every member of the Aelerian army, from Protostrator on down, was cognisant.
Looking at him Bas thought of Isaac, rotting somewhere nearby, unburied though not unmourned. Of Isaac’s rough eyes and savaged ears, of his heart that was – not decent, none of them could claim that, but no worse than he had to be, no worse than life had made him. But Bas didn’t think about him for very long. There wasn’t any point in thinking about the dead. It didn’t do them any good, and it did you less.
Had Bas been the leader of the forces opposite, they would be tearing up cobblestone for barricades, setting fire to the houses by the entrance, sending any humans within fleeing for cover. And then he would have taken up place behind it, daring the hoplitai to come forward. The Aelerian pikemen were more dangerous in defence than attack, and their numbers would count for less within the confines of the city, funnelled down alleyways and narrow side streets. True, the partisans would be active, but it beat any of the alternatives. It would not have worked for ever – the Eternal needed food, as did every other thing of flesh, and they would not get it with their lands in uproar, with Konstantinos sending outriders to pillage the slave plantations that had kept the city fed. But it would work for a time.
A moot point, as of course there was no sign of fortification, and the Eternal would do as they had done the day before, as they had done in every day of battle back and back and back down to the roots of time, back to the dawn of the world, back to the beginnings. The valley would shudder and pulse with the beat of their great cavalry charge, and then that charge would bend and flatten and break against the rows of pikes, and then the life’s blood of a species would water the high grass of late summer. When the moon rose it would shine down upon the corpses of ten thousand humans and upon the final remnant of the species that had, two days earlier, credible claim on the ownership of the world.
Bas took a long sip from his waterskin. In the distance he could make out the Prime’s sigil fluttering from the centre of the host, as high as a full-grown elm, a thing of sterling silver and peacock plumage, the same as had flown above Red Fields twenty years earlier, and the Lamentation three centuries before that, which would be scattered in the mud before the sunset. And beneath it a sea of personal standards, a fluttering breeze of red lions and silver foxes and great, twisting, verdant dragons, and perhaps – though it was impossible to say for sure from such a distance – a white heron.
Bas took another sip, swirled the water around in his mouth, spat it into the ground. It would be the last time water would touch his lips. Many things now were happening to him for the last time, and since waking up that morning he had become peculiarly cognisant of each one – his last piss, his last morsel of food.
The wind blew and the Eternal came with it, the only sound to be heard – though this was loud enough, this was almost deafening – was of the thundering hooves of their horses, the valley bright with their streamers and their pennants and their flags. Hamilcar and the better portion of his archers were still in the Roost, but even had the army had their full complement it would not have much mattered; the Eternal came too swift for a decent volley, and their armour was sufficient protection against any but the luckiest shot.
The hoplitai gave way; they could not but otherwise, there was nothing that could have withstood such a charge, not had the Eternal thought to punch their way through the side of a mountain. Lances bit into human flesh, warhorses crushed the skulls of men beneath their heels, men screamed and horses screamed, uncanny counterpoint to the silence of their killers. The charge cut deep into the the Aelerian line, through the first packed ranks, surging further, further, further, then slowing, and then stopping altogether, horses faltering atop writhing human flesh, skewered by pike tip, demons punctured by spear and cut down by short sword. They had never learned to war, Bas could see that now, as individuals they were marvellously skilled but of tactics and strategy they had no real conception. One good charge, that was all they were capable of, that was all they had ever needed to offer. And though none of the demons would go down easily, still they would go down, for the thema had the taste of blood in their mouths, the fresh-faced innocents Bas had led out of the capital three years prior replaced by savage-eyed iron-capped butchers, every one of them. And the most powerful element in the demons’ arsenal, their mystique, their seeming invincibility, was shattered now, shattered beyond repair. They weren’t gods any more, only things of flesh and of blood, their strength and their endurance more of a reason to bring one down, and what a thing to tell your children, that you were there when a species died! That you took part in the end of a world!
Their enemies’ battle plan being so simple, the Aelerians’ own needed to be no more advanced – the central mass of pikemen having broken the Others’ great charge, Bas and the cavalry would strike from the wings, a vast enfilading manoeuvre against which there could be no defence. Bas waited until the demons’ vanguard had shuddered to a halt, their comrades behind slowing, and then he bellowed and surged forward, forgetting his duties as an officer, caught up entirely in the sublime rush of death. He saw rising above the centre of the Eternal host the Prime’s great standard, and he made for it with all the haste his beast was capable of, stamping the pointed narrow of his boots against horseflesh, goading it onward, for Bas would not live through the day and neither would his beast, by the gods and not the beast alone. Two thousand men following close behind him, and another two would come in from the opposing flank, the others swamped beneath an ocean of men.
Bas had been the first off the mark but he was no great horseman and by the time he reached his first opponent, a giant clad in armour of cinnabar and cerulean, the demon was already surrounded by three Aelerian cavalry, one hoping to distract its attention while the other two circled round, but the demon was too swift, its blade whirling from one to the other. Fools! Fools, for there could be no contending with the Eternal in speed or strength or technique but only savagery, and Bas roared and spurred his beast harder, through a brief gap and past his countrymen and towards the demon and then still roaring into the demon and the both of them tumbling through the air and then the impact of the gr
ound and then, for a time, nothing.
When Bas came awake the sun was bright against his eyes, and the Eternal was dead, and both horses were dead, and there was blood matting his long hair down against his face. Standing, his vision dipped and pitched for an instant before settling into equilibrium, and his ankle was not moving as it generally did, and Bas barely noticed either, pulled his sword from off the corpse of his mount. With nowhere to ride, with the vast weight of the Aelerians closing round them, unhorsed and unused to defence, the final flower of the Eternal made a desperate last stand beneath the gonfalon of their leader, and Bas sprinted towards it as a bee to flower, or a moth to flame.
An Eternal blocked his path, its suit of armour pale blue and bright argent, and overlaying its face was the Roost-forged steel of some hideous chimera. In one hand it carried an ungainly looking single-edged broadsword and in the other it carried its twin; one would be the feint and one would deliver the killing blow, and Bas knew that he had no hope of defending against both and did not attempt it. A toss of the dice, a gambler’s luck, the left was the feint and the right the true attack, and Bas deflecting it and the counterstroke ate away at a gap in the Eternal’s armour and at the gold skin and pale bone beneath it. It did not scream, they never screamed, but it gave a step and then it gave another, and when it thought to give a third it slipped or nearly slipped on a corpse, human or Eternal Bas could not say for certain, there being little enough difference between dead flesh. But Bas was not slow to take advantage of the error, the first strike ringing off the demon’s guard but the second catching it just above the breastbone and the next severing its throat, blood spattering briskly onto Bas’s blade and onto his chain hauberk and against his face, blood rich on his jaw and his tongue.
Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Page 33