Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  He tightened his grip on the hilt of his borrowed sword and tried to ignore the sting biting into his flesh. He nudged Brit. ‘Can you see them?’

  ‘Aye, sir, our escort are leading them.’ Brit let off two short whistles, followed by a longer blast and the signal repeated along the wall, relayed by other watchers. He looked away, blinked quickly and returned to squint through the eyehole. ‘Not many left in the Duke’s Guard.’

  Ran’s heart dropped into his boots and he peered around the blind to scan the fields. A plume of dust stretched south, carried on the hard north wind, a smudge of brown and black oscillating where the dust began.

  Marshal Gregon dropped to his knees beside Ran, a looking glass resting on the edge of the rampart. ‘Fuck, that’s not many at all.’

  ‘Marshal,’ called Brit. ‘There be flags at the south sentry post—they’ve seen the enemy in the hills.’

  Away to the south, where the road wound down from the valley, two small red flags beat back and forth in a hurried signal. A signaller on the wall rushed to wave a reply with a set of flags, numerous colours signalling different messages in a variety of patterns.

  ‘How far away are they?’ Marshal Gregon asked with his looking glass on the approaching riders.

  Another series of whistles echoed along the wall, down to the signallers and back before Brit answered, ‘A few miles, maybe a little more.’

  The marshal’s looking glass snapped closed and he turned to Ran with a smile. ‘We’ll test your trap after all, your Grace!’

  Ran tried to mimic the marshal’s sentiment but his expression refused to cooperate. The muscles around his mouth were fixed in an anxious frown, anticipating the absolute worst, while his brain tried to decipher the circumstances leading to his father’s army being whittled down to just a few hundred soldiers.

  ‘Why are there so few men?’ he whispered to the marshal.

  Gregon shrugged. ‘Better than none at all. You said our troops broke ranks and took off. No doubt a few hundred of them regrouped at other camps near the front.’

  The watcher’s whistle pierced the air and Brit leaned back from his eyehole. ‘The Duke’s here, sir.’

  Below, a mass of Orthian riders approached the gate at full gallop with an escort of garrison riders. The duke, thank the gods, rode at the centre atop his warhorse. The city gates groaned closed behind the remains of the Orthian soldiers and two portcullises, designed in tandem with the palace gate but twice the size, rattled into place. Ran fancied running to find his father among the men and horses, but checked himself. He needed to coordinate this last-ditch attempt to break the Woaden advance.

  ‘Brit, send the signal to block the road and collapse the bridge,’ ordered Ran, propping his looking glass on the rampart and taking a deep, steadying breath. He’d come this far on his own; his father’s arrival changed nothing. He was the Palace Commander and responsible for Usmein’s defence until he officially handed command back to Ronart.

  Whistles echoed down the wall and flags snapped back and forth. On the far side of the fields, teams rushed forwards to dump cartloads of rubbish, furniture, boulders, and soil across the road, completely blocking where it came down from the hills. The carts and horses hurried away from the barricade, turning at specified markers and disappearing into the defences. Chains drawn by stout plough horses inside the city hauled a hastily constructed timber bridge platform away from under a layer of soil and debris before the gate. Beneath it ran a long, deep trench of foul, brackish water and clusters of sharp pikes. Ran’s logic was simple, almost childish. He hoped the audacious simplicity alone would baffle the Woaden.

  From the roadblock, earthwork embankments as tall as two men branched north and south to form two wide causeways. Four or five horses could ride abreast along these channels and quickly find themselves in a trench as deep as the bunds were high. There was no time to stop and avoid these channels when exiting the hills on the road; the blockade saw to that. A rider’s only choice was to turn their horse left or right and charge down the trench or hit the roadblock head on. With a galloping horde of cavalry behind them, the riders were unlikely to attempt a stop and risk a crush in the bottleneck.

  Ran watched the edge of the hills and the slice of road visible beyond the blockade, his pulse hammering in his throat, thudding in his ears. He waited and watched, certain in one moment that his plan would succeed then doubting it completely in the next. He swallowed a lump from his throat.

  Woaden riders thundered from the valley and poured out into the earthworks. A vanguard ten mounts wide, as many as could ride side by side along the road, stormed towards the blockade. Their horses immediately baulked and followed the channels by instinct, paying no attention to their masters.

  ‘Yes!’ Ran pumped his fist in the air, amazed and thrilled that the bunds worked.

  Brit slapped him on the back. ‘They’re doing it. You beauty!’

  A cheer echoed along the walls and men began to chant; Black Prince, Black Prince…

  Hundreds of riders poured from the valley and vanished into the channels, galloping down into the jewel of the defences; a vast network of trenches dug by the blistered hands of Usmein’s residents. Soon the screams of dying soldiers and the frantic whinnies of distressed horses reached the wall, dust clouds billowing up from unseen fighting.

  Black Prince, Black Prince…

  Too deep for a man to scale without tools, the network spread from the hills towards Usmein’s walls, a twisting maze of trenches modelled on labyrinthine city streets. The soldiers of Usmein’s garrison knew nothing of fighting on flat fields, but they were deadly in the winding canyons between buildings. The fields were now a dizzying maze riddled with drop pits, tar traps, and set about with ambush zones and dead ends to trap unsuspecting Woaden riders and unseat them from their mounts.

  Black Prince, Black Prince…

  ‘Why are they saying that?’ Ran muttered to Gregon.

  The Marshal answered with a nod at the black Palace Command banner shivering in the wind. He winked and smiled. ‘They’ll be calling you the Red Prince once this is over!’

  ‘Maybe… If we win…’ Ran’s limbs tingled with elation and terror, still throbbing with uncomfortable heat.

  Word of the defences quickly reached the riders coming through the valley and they slowed to avoid the barricade across the road. A good number, unable to stop in time, smashed into the wall of rubble and rubbish. Ran made sure the city’s privies were emptied for the barrier—they might be the Empire’s feared soldiers, but even the Woaden would shy away from climbing piles of shit. With the slowing of the charge, another challenge arose—the first of many heads appeared reluctantly over the roadblock and earthwork bunds, riders abandoning their horses and scrambling up to avoid the trenches.

  ‘You see them?’ asked Brit, his face pressed hard against the stone of his archer’s blind, his eye on the peephole.

  ‘Send the signal,’ Ran replied and the whistles echoed again.

  All over the field, beyond the borders of the trench network, arrows soared silently from camouflaged blinds to rain steely death on those stupid enough to peer above the embankments. The screams stung Ranoth’s ears but he bit the inside of his lip and ignored the screeches of the dying—better them than the people inside the city.

  A blast of blue light suddenly lit the field and a concussion wave hit the city wall with a shuddering boom.

  Ran slammed into the rampart at his back and several men tumbled over the edge into the street, screaming all the way. If it hadn’t been for the searing pain in his hands and forearms, Ran would have helped those knocked down by the explosion, but he couldn’t lift his own weight from the stones.

  ‘Mage! They’ve got a mage!’ Brit’s bellowing sounded like a whisper in a thunderstorm to Ran’s ringing ears.

  ‘What? What is it?’ Ran cried, struggling to stand and falling gracelessly to his side.

  The watcher turned and hauled the prince to his feet by th
e front of his tunic. ‘A mage, mate—they’ve brought a wizard.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Usmein, Orthia

  Woaden mages were a rare but powerful weapon deployed in the Territory. Ran had seen firsthand what they could do, scything through lines of soldiers as though they were wheat in a field. The battle for Signal Hill had turned against him on the power of a magic-weaver, and only swung back again once they’d been eliminated by an elite squad of Orthian cutters. Such people were forbidden in Orthia, their powers a danger to the people and the state. Only the Woaden dared court such strangeness, bringing cursed children to train in the Academy and bolstering the ranks of the Congress of Mages.

  ‘Fuck,’ Ran breathed. He snatched up a looking glass in his trembling hand and peered through the lenses, the view at the other end shivering as though the earth itself trembled. ‘I can’t see…’

  ‘The roadblock’s gone!’ Brit shouted and immediately Marshal Gregon began bellowing orders.

  His knuckles turning white with effort, Ran focused the looking glass and cursed under his breath. The roadblock was indeed gone, vaporised as far as he could tell, leaving a few scraps of twisted steel and smouldering timber remaining. Through the dust and smoke, soldiers and horses charged forwards with weapons drawn. There was precious little space for people to run along the road and more than a few tumbled into unseen trenches. The horses went down hard, snapping their necks and throwing their riders from the saddle when a trench unexpectedly appeared before them. Archers fired and did well to hit their marks in the haze but too many Woaden made it through.

  Ran’s survey of the field settled on a figure standing motionless on the road, horses and men charging past like a river flows around a boulder. Ran focused the looking glass and felt his jaw drop.

  A woman in silver robes stood calmly amongst the chaos, her elegant hands folded together as though she watched students practicing their letters in absolute silence. The serenity she affected while surrounded by madness and death was entirely unnerving. Her long black hair couldn’t be straighter if it was ironed flat and her skin showed not a mark or crease. Her robes should have been covered shoulder to foot in dust and grime, but they flowed in the icy north wind, beating against her body in a steady rhythm, untouched by dirt or imperfection.

  The battle vanished from Ran’s consciousness and for a fleeting moment he imagined it was all over.

  He liked that idea.

  He wondered if it might be all right to just stay here and watch this woman for a while.

  She was beautiful…

  Grey eyes, the shade of an impending blizzard, met his gaze through the looking glass and Ranoth froze. She did not blink—not once.

  I see you, Ranoth. I smell you. I know what you are. The woman’s low, hoarse voice echoed in his mind.

  He shuddered hard, vomit burning the back of his throat, and dragged his eyes away from the woman standing amongst the chaos.

  The fuck?! She can smell me? What is she—

  Another glance through the looking glass told Ran it didn’t matter—she was atop a horse and riding for the city with the other Woaden intent on scaling the walls.

  ‘Prepare!’ Marshal Gregon ordered, his voice akin to a thunderclap. From the blinds along the length of the wall, archers leaned out and nocked arrows dipped in alcohol hard enough to strip skin from bone. The smell alone made eyes water at close range and anyone dim enough to drink it didn’t last long. Braziers warming the blinds lent flames to the noxious liquid and the arrows glowed hot in the grey day.

  ‘Draw!’ Gregon called and the steady creak of bows easing back filled Ran’s ears. ‘Loose!’ The flames made a gentle slapping sound as arrows arced through the air and into the field. Two hundred feet from the wall’s base, they plunged into the deep trench full of murky water and everyone on the rampart ducked for cover.

  The explosion took Ran by surprise despite waiting for it in the archer’s blind. In the trench, a mixture of tar and alcohol ignited with a deafening roar and a blinding orange fireball tore into the sky, skirted by a thick veil of oily, black smoke.

  Another cheer went up, accompanied by a smattering of calls of Black Prince. Ran wasn’t sure he liked the title, but he knew he didn’t have a say in the matter. For what it was worth, he was now covered in soot and ash, the silver of his armour and tabard muted so that only the black showed.

  The watchers whistled back and forth and Brit turned to Ranoth with a relieved smile. ‘That worked well, your Grace.’

  ‘Seemed to,’ Ran nodded and perched his looking glass on the rampart again. The trench stretched the length of the city wall and crackled with angry fire. The charging Woaden had nowhere to go but back the way they came, along the road or into the trenches. Those atop horses weren’t given much choice, the frantic animals bolting across the fields and slamming into the various earthworks. Orthian archers from the city garrison, positioned at the borders of the fields, resumed their volleys, picking off runners and anyone thinking of returning to the hills to regroup.

  Clanking and shouting drew Ran’s attention from the rout of the Imperial Army to the square inside the gate. Below, on the cobbles, among fountains and ancient granite buildings, Duke Ronart rallied the troops he’d lead back to the city.

  ‘Form ranks!’ Ronart thumped a clenched fist into the chest plate of his dented and filthy armour, its shine and lustre scuffed out completely. ‘If those Woaden bastards want this city, they can come over that wall and pry it from our cold, dead fingers! Dark will be the day Orthia bends a knee to that seething horde of motherfuckers!’

  A heartened battle cry echoed up the wall and a surge of pride rushed through Ran’s veins. Dark indeed would be the day his people surrendered to the Woaden. He glanced at the sky and smiled. It would not be today.

  ‘Prince Ranoth…’ Brit’s low, uneasy drawl brought Ran back to reality atop the wall. He turned to the watcher and realised the reason for his disquiet. A thin section of roaring flame had extinguished immediately in front of their position, while the rest of the trench continued to burn, happily feasting on the toxic mix of tar and booze. Ran shielded his eyes and scanned the trench, his gaze falling on the woman in silver robes, her hands stretched towards the fire.

  Her face contorted with concentrated rage, the flames reflected perfectly in her intense stare. The extinguished section of the trench expanded and Ran stiffened; she was bringing down his wall of fire.

  ‘Marshal!’ he called, keeping the woman in his sights. ‘We need archers!’

  A team of archers rushed forward, trained their arrows on the mage-woman and fired. The flames vaporised the shafts before they found their mark but the volley continued. If she expanded the gap any further, surely she risked the wrath of the arrows? To Ran’s surprise, her grey gaze found him again as she twisted her fingers to extinguish more flames.

  I know what you are, Ranoth Olseta…

  As if conjured by her words, heat flashed down Ran’s arms and throbbed in the ends of his fingers. His looking glass cracked under the pressure, the soft copper warping under the pads of his fingers. He threw the tube and stared. Tiny flashes of silver pinged across his skin, little sparks of energy snapping between his fingers like lightning. Despite the heat throbbing through his bones, there was no burning or smoke, no outward sign of what had happened other than the sparks and flashes.

  Horrified, he glared at the woman who stood still, impervious to the rain of falling arrows. Beside her soldiers collapsed, riddled with feathered shafts and yet she remained untouched, as if protected by a transparent shell.

  She smiled.

  There was no hint of joy in the expression, shadows descended over her eyes and her pale lips twisted into a sneer. With a flick of her fingers, a wave of heavy soil erupted from the ground and crashed into the trench, flames and tar exploding towards Usmein.

  The blast wave hit the wall below Ran’s feet and shattered every window in the city for a mile. The mortar in the wal
l broke along its age-old seams and the section beside the gatehouse began to slowly collapse. Ran struggled to keep his feet, the stones shuddering and slipping against each other while soldiers and archers hurried to safety on the unbroken wall to the south. Brit turned to catch Ran’s arm and missed by a hair’s breadth.

  A four-foot wide block between them disappeared, leaving a chasm and a deadly drop. Ran’s footing faltered and he staggered backwards, the wall tipping away from the city into the field.

  The mage-woman appeared in front of Ranoth on the rampart, materialising out of thin air. She shoved at him with open hands and a blast of blue light slammed into his chest. His feet left the stone of the falling rampart and he flew backwards across empty space, sailing through the shattered window of a nearby building, and sliding wildly across rugs and a flagstone floor.

  Breathless and stunned, he groaned and tried to heave himself up from the floor. The room around him was furnished as a bedchamber, but was mercifully empty of occupants. His hands stung and throbbed, heat building and swirling then easing only to build again a moment later.

  The woman appeared in a flare of light and walked calmly across the chamber, flexing her fingers. Outside, the crash of battle echoed up from the square. The remaining Woaden had crossed the crumbled section of wall to meet the defending Orthian army and Ran thanked the gods his father was down there.

  She flexed her hands again and a spark ignited between the tips of her fingernails. Slowly, she drew her fingertips wider and revealed a web of sizzling lightning arcing between each outstretched finger. He staggered to his feet and glanced down, his own fingers sparking.

  Oh shit…

  ‘Oh shit, indeed, young prince.’ She opened her palms towards him and displayed two glowing webs of energy pulsating across her hands. ‘You are untrained, but I still sensed you all the way across the plain. The trail began at that ugly old house off the road and led me right to you. My condolences… The same magic flows through both our veins.’