by Col Buchanan
Around the Dreamer, the rest of the party sat waiting upon their zels in two groupings: the surviving rangers and medicos, and Coya and Marsh. All of them huddled in their cloaks and watched the hundreds of men and women training in the fading light of day, squads of Specials running and shooting on the windswept plain before the northern city wall of Bar-Khos.
Coya gritted his teeth against the chill gusts and looked on without expression. He had been told the winds of the plain here were a constant presence during winter, pouring down from the far Reach where the lands and mountains were frozen hard now by snow, gathering speed across the open land around Bar-Khos to scour flesh with their bitter cold, making a misery of everything.
No wonder they had built the northern wall of the city so high all those centuries ago.
Before Coya, shots and gun smoke quickly sheared away to nothing, though he could tell that the Specials were only firing blanks out there on the open ground. It had been their gunfire which had first drawn his interest in his typical nosey fashion, as the party rode along the road towards the gates of the city, nearing their journey’s end – a quick look, he had told them, drawing grumbles from the cold and weary riders who wished only to see a roof over their heads before the setting of the sun.
Now, however, the rangers showed some interest in what they were witnessing, enough at least to quell their impatience. Partly screened from the city and road by the broad depression they worked within, the hundreds of Specials were clearly practising for a raid on Camp Liberty, the Mannian siege town to the south of the Shield. For it was all there before them – the layout of the northern side of Camp Liberty, staked out using sticks and lengths of bright string, through which hundreds of figures moved quickly in the fading light of day and hundreds more fired blanks or blunted arrows from an array of defensive positions, their shouts carrying in the breeze.
Intrigued, and unaware of any planned attack on the Mannian camp, Coya spotted a group of black-robed Rōshun sprinting on their own mission through the stakes and string, their curt calls sounding like birds on the hunt.
He sat up straighter in his saddle, or at least as straight as he could.
Baracha was there, the big tattooed Alhazii looming over everyone around him. And the others too who had accompanied him here in his skud.
If this was a planned raid on Camp Liberty, then the Rōshun must be using it as cover for their own purposes. He looked closer. Sure enough, the Rōshun practised just beyond the staked layout of Camp Liberty, working through a separate floor plan strung out across the short grass of the field; a small and self-contained area, a single building with different floors laid out side by side.
Mokabi, Coya thought in a flash. They’re going after Mokabi at last.
Such had been their intention all along, just as soon as they found a way of getting to the Mannian general. Until then they had planned on targeting his top personnel and learning the lay of the land. Maybe a full-blown raid on the camp had been their idea then, the very opportunity they had been waiting for to strike the head from the snake.
The sight of the familiar figures made Coya want to ride over and greet the men, but they were in the midst of their operation, and he had more pressing matters at hand.
‘Well?’ Coya asked quietly, for he saw that the Dreamer had opened her eyes at long last, returned to the waking world.
‘The Khosians are right,’ she offered in reply. ‘It’s the expedition all right, speaking through a man named Juke. He claims to be with Ash and a few others. He says they have the charts you wanted.’
‘They have them?’ Coya gripped the pommel of his saddle and swayed in his own sudden excitement, his ailments at once forgotten. ‘Then we must do all we can to get them here. Where is Ash now?’
‘Just south of Sheaf. On foot, apparently. They ask if we can send a skud or a boat to pick them up.’
‘Sounds good. Let us do that then.’
‘We can’t. The Khosians say Mokabi has sealed the Pathian peninsula tight since his arrival. No way to slip a ship through, sky or water.’
‘So what do we suggest to them?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me.’
Coya ruminated where he sat in his saddle. He should be dead by all reckoning, for the bolt was still firmly lodged in his bandaged skull. Yet so far he had suffered only headaches and some minor memory losses, while his sense of taste seemed to have gone awry, everything tasting of garlic, even the hazii cake he munched away on for relief. Otherwise he was fine, in that he was still alive. He might even get to see his wife again, if he did not drop dead first from a sudden jolt to his head.
It was a miracle, whatever Shard had done for him, as slight as she claimed her touch to have been at the time. Coya had seen men robbed of vision, language, all recollection of who they were, from much less serious injuries than his own.
Shots rang out from a group of Greyjackets stationed in the replica camp, sending puffs of white smoke into the air, the figures crouched down on one knee and reloading after every shot they fired, taking it as seriously as they could. Through the scene walked a few sergeants of the Specials with hands behind their backs, shouting through scarves at people, telling them if they were dead or not.
The battle was impressive to watch for all that it was only an exercise. Though it was still nothing compared to the scene at the city’s northern wall, which stretched from east to west across the plain. In the weak afternoon sunlight, thousands of people laboured across a great slope of earth they were building against the wall, citizens by the dress of them, frantically erecting a defence against the imperial guns that would be heading here just as soon as the Expeditionary Force completed their capture of Juno’s Ferry, which by the accounts of couriers on the road was now surrounded and barely holding on.
Even as they laboured, Coya could hear the rumble of cannon from the Shield to the south, low vibrations that matched the grumbling wheels of the wagons on the road behind him, bearing wounded fighters evacuated from Juno’s Ferry before it had been cut off.
If only he had those charts to play with, to wave in the face of the Alhazii and demand of them aid in this war.
‘But they’re so damned close!’ Coya exclaimed in frustration. ‘There must be some way we can bring them home.’
‘This raid,’ said Marsh, and his bodyguard nodded to the figures running through the gun smoke. ‘Find out when it’s due to happen. Find out how the Specials intend to make it back through the Shield.’
‘Of course,’ said Coya, seeing it now too. ‘If they can make it to Camp Liberty in time, they can return with the Specials under cover of the raid.’
Shard closed her eyes again in her silent communication.
Moments passed in silence, in which Captain Gamorre nudged her zel towards Coya. The other rangers watched her in glum impatience. ‘Well, we got you here safely.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘We’d like to head into the city, if that’s all right with you. We still need to report in and sort out a billet for the night.’
‘Of course,’ said Coya distractedly. ‘And thank you again, Captain. Thank you all. We could not have done it without you.’
She nodded, then whirled her zel around and led the others off across the field through drifting tatters of smoke, the rest of them offering their farewells. Sergeant Sansun raised a hand. Young Xeno waved a salute in the manner of the imperial military. The medico Kris nodded.
‘Stay safe,’ he heard the girl Curl say to the Dreamer, and then she too wheeled away.
Across the plain a gust of wind howled fiercely, making the world seem larger than before.
Good fortunes, he thought after the line of departing riders.
Shard stirred in her saddle and inhaled the cold wind. ‘They’re raiding Camp Liberty in two nights’ time, if the weather stays dry.’
‘That’s a lot of ground to cover in two days,’ observed Marsh. ‘From Sheaf to the Lansway. Will the Khosians push
back the raid I wonder?’
‘I already asked. They say they can’t risk waiting any longer. They suspect Mokabi is preparing to launch a major offensive against the Shield any time now.’
‘Then tell them,’ Coya urged with his voice raised. ‘Tell Ash they must find a way to get to the Lansway in time. Tell him to hurry!’
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The Pathian Arrow
In the darkness of the night a cone of light swept around the low bank of earth and raced towards him, trailing ribbons of smoke and a sequence of lesser lights framed by windows. The longhunter Cole stood watching with narrowing eyes, one boot propped on a felled tree that lay across the iron tracks, one hand perched on the barrel of his rifle, smoke rising from a burning roll-up hanging from his lips.
‘Hurry up, you fool, it’s coming!’ came the voice of Aléas from the nearest trees.
The longhunter’s wide-brimmed hat tilted as he scanned the trees bordering the track, where he glimpsed the young Rōshun hurrying deeper into cover.
Closer the light came, spearing along the track and narrowing his eyes even further. Cole stood his ground, caught in a sudden mood of daring as he watched the smoke trailing from thrusters on either side of the approaching rail liner, felt the vibrations rising up from the stony ground and into his boots. Moments before the beam struck him, he tossed his roll-up to the ground and hitched up his rifle. Casually stepped aside into the gloom beneath the trees and followed after Aléas, hearing the rail liner’s thrusters cutting out and brakes screeching in their place. Lights flickered through the trees from the passing windows, faces staring out from the comfort of their carriages.
The rail liner was a recent innovation by the Empire of Mann, a form of fast transportation that was being unrolled across the far northern continent by competing cartels and now in Pathia too, where a track connected the capital city of Bairat with Sheaf, and which was being extended northwards onto the Khosian Lansway. Still unfinished, it should take them close enough to Camp Liberty to complete the rest of their journey by road in the day they had remaining, if only they could avoid unwanted attention until then.
Not an easy task in this land suffering under Mannian occupation.
In the gloom a pair of eyes swung to watch him approaching. It was Nico, crouched down next to Ash and Juke. The cat sat at his side.
His son had barely spoken to him since they had left the Isles, seemed to hardly even know who or where he was. It stung Cole’s heart, such indifference from his only child, no matter that the lad hardly seemed himself yet.
Without acknowledging him, Nico stared out at the strange contraption arrayed along the track, its carriages jostling together one after the other as they came to a stop.
Voices shouted as men jumped down from the forward draught carriage to inspect the fallen tree in their way. Silently watching, Cole and the others waited until the sounds of chopping axes rose into the night air, and chatter came from passengers climbing down from the carriages to stretch their legs or relieve themselves in the bushes.
‘Now,’ announced Ash, and they stepped out from the tree line and made their way towards the last carriage on the rail. A group of Mannian priests stood clustered in their robes of white further along the liner. Soldiers passed the time with remarks and leers towards a pair of women.
‘Quickly now,’ Ash urged, and they climbed steps into the heat and light of the carriage and sat down at the back in empty seats. Cole whistled softly and the cat scurried down under the seat, her nails clattering against the wooden floor.
Soon enough, the passengers were stepping back on board and returning to their seats as a horn wailed outside, stamping their feet and blowing into their hands for warmth. The thrusters roared and fired brightly, and then the rail liner was in motion again with a sudden lurch.
No one paid them any heed. Outside, the world accelerated ever faster until they were shooting through the night like an arrow, heading towards the far Lansway in the north.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Siege Town
The lights of Camp Liberty smouldered beneath the late-night stars, its jagged skyline sprawling across the Lansway surrounded by earthworks and endless encampments of tents, with the sea washing gently ashore on either side. None of them had ever seen such numbers of tents before, choking the breadth of the isthmus on either side of the road for laqs on end, before spreading around the camp itself.
Mokabi’s army, a quarter million mercenaries strong. Drawn here from every corner of the Midèrēs and beyond, their flags and pennants flapping in the intermittent sea breeze.
Weary and footsore, Ash and the others scouted the western perimeter of the armed camp, listening to the percussions of explosions and cannon fire from the besieged Shield to the north of them: a dark form spanning the width of the isthmus, lit by flashes and fires. Beyond it lay the city, blocked by sight. More glitters lit up the sky above it. Fires reflected from the bellies of passing clouds. It seemed a sky raid was hitting the besieged city.
‘Bar-Khos,’ Nico exclaimed at the sight of it, and both Ash and Cole looked at him in surprise.
The young man blinked quickly, glancing around at his companions in darkness softened by the lights of the camp. The fire was back in his eyes again, and Ash’s pulse quickened at the sight of it.
In his mind he saw teeth flashing in triumph; a hand holding out a dripping pelloma egg above a dark pool.
Your turn.
‘We’re going home?’ asked Nico.
‘Aye, son,’ his father told him. ‘That’s where we’re headed.’
With Ash leading the way they crept past dug-outs protecting the camp’s western flank, where sentries played dice near the heat of braziers and paid little heed to their duties, hardly expecting an attack. Ash settled down occasionally on one knee, sniffing the air and watching for a while without moving, before setting off again at a crouch, seeking a safe way into the town.
‘Where did you think we were going?’ he heard Aléas asking of his apprentice behind.
‘Don’t know. I hardly knew where we were until a moment ago.’
‘You even know who I am?’
‘Should I?’
‘Well that’s great, after everything I’ve—’
‘Relax. I know who you are, Aléas.’
‘Sshh!’ Ash hissed from up front, spotting an opening in the defences at last.
Stealthily, they approached an area of pens holding hundreds of zels, and with care made their way through the crowds of snickering creatures without causing a panic. On the other side they were startled by the sight of a patrolling sentry, but Ash knocked him out from behind then beckoned the others to follow. Together, they slipped into the town without raising an alarm, the sun just beginning to rise over the eastern sea.
*
The streets of Camp Liberty were quiet at this early hour, though they began to grow busier as the sun rose weakly. In some places the night’s festivities seemed to be still ongoing; music and chatter drifted from the many brothels and tavernas along the streets, while drunken soldiers and mercenaries sprawled in the dirt roads or wove their way blindly back to their billets.
No one paid the party any attention as they made their way to the north end of the town. Nearing the northern perimeter of buildings they stopped and looked about, rubbing their hands for warmth in the freezing air.
‘What now?’ Aléas asked in a cloud of his own breath.
‘They told us to wait here until nightfall for the raid,’ Ash told him, staring towards the walls of the Shield wreathed in smoke. ‘So we wait.’
‘Well we can’t just lurk around the streets all day. We’ll freeze to death, for one thing.’
The Anwi man Juke was suffering worst of all, arms stuffed into his armpits and teeth chattering. He looked to a nearby taverna and gestured towards it. ‘Don’t know about anyone else,’ he said, ‘but I could do with a hot drink.’
The taverna was called the Beggar King ac
cording to the sign over its door. Inside the warm interior, soldiers played games of Rash or slumped drunkenly in their seats, though a few heads turned as they entered before looking away again in disinterest. Around the upper storey ran a balcony with more tables and chairs, and the party made their way up the steps, letting the cat choose an empty table for them by curling up beneath it.
They ordered hot drinks to warm their bones, cautiously eyeing the other customers around the room. From where they sat a window of glass overlooked the distant fighting on the Shield. Ash could see the walls clearly now in the daylight, ranks of fallen ruins stretching across the breadth of the Lansway, swarming with a mass of figures beyond counting, and past the ruins the foremost surviving wall, a cliff of black stone faced by a rampart of earth, hazy in the white smoke of cannon fire.
Juke rose and stood next to the window to gaze at the sight of the Shield, his expression tinged with what appeared to be disappointment.
‘They sound a lot bigger in the stories,’ he grumbled to no one in particular, to the world perhaps.
They seemed smaller than Ash had remembered them too, though they had been soaring cliffs when first he had witnessed them, and from a distance similar to this one.
A throat cleared. Nico staring at him.
‘What happened to me?’ he asked Ash, and Aléas turned his head to regard the young man who was his friend, and to listen to the reply. Cole seemed to be holding his breath.
‘You have no memory of it?’
‘Only parts,’ replied Nico, then stared down into his mug of chee. ‘Q’os. I remember the imperial capital, and being captured by the Mannians.’ A shudder ran through the young man’s thin frame. In the glow of weak daylight he held up the fingers of his hand as though to study them for injury. ‘And the arena. They brought me to the arena to fight. After that . . .’ Nico shook his head.