by David Hair
Banno did wonder what they were talking about this time; despite all the assurances and public peace-making, he still worried that they’d try something once the istariol was found. Don’t make me choose sides, Father, he prayed, as they set off.
They’d barely gone a hundred yards when they ran into Raythe Vyre himself – who told Zar to turn round. ‘It’s night time. The city will still be there tomorrow.’
‘But Dad, we’re the only ones who haven’t seen it,’ she complained.
‘But it’ll be dark in an hour and I’m speaking shortly.’
Her face fell and Banno felt compelled to speak up. ‘Lord Vyre—’
‘Raythe,’ the Otravian corrected, perhaps a sign of acceptance.
‘Sir,’ Banno resumed, not pushing his luck, ‘we’ve been hearing all afternoon how incredible it is – but we’re the only ones who haven’t seen it. Please, we’ll run all the way there and back. Father says it’s not far.’
Raythe frowned, but after a moment, he said, ‘Fair enough, but hurry back: I’d hate you to miss one of my famous speeches.’
Zarelda punched her father’s arm. ‘Thanks, old man.’ She grinned and scampered off.
Banno shared a smile with Raythe: the first time. It felt like another step in the right direction – then he went after her, caught up and they carried on hand in hand.
As they rounded the base of the hill, they passed Kemara Solus and Moss Trimble, in intent conversation – then they came in sight of the canyon and with a gasp, both stopped dead. The setting sun gleamed on the ruins, glinting off verdigris-streaked bronze amid the vines swallowing the lower reaches. But it was the mighty rock chained above the city, and the castle atop it all, that caught and held their gaze.
‘It’s like we’ve fallen into a legend,’ Zar breathed.
‘Rath Argentium,’ Banno whispered, wanting to remember this sight for ever. ‘I always loved the tale of Gerda and the Aldar King. But how can a whole mountain peak float like that?’
‘It’s to do with the way istariol reacts to the nebulum when it’s activated,’ Zarelda answered.
‘What’s nebulum?’ he asked, feeling inadequate.
‘It’s the energy field that life generates – spirits dwell in it and sorcerers use it for energy.’ She pointed to the giant floating peak, which was at least five hundred yards across. ‘That contains enough activated istariol to bear its own weight – without those chains, I bet it’d just float away.’
‘What’s underneath?’
‘The hole it left, I suppose. Dad says this can happen naturally – usually the breakaway rock only goes up a few dozen feet. It was what made istariol easy to find, back then. Now the imperial mines have to go really deep.’
‘How come you know so much?’
‘Reading, listening.’ She grinned shyly. ‘I’m a sponge, I just soak it all up.’
They turned to each other and kissed impulsively, a light peck that turned hungry, and for a few moments they even forgot the wondrous vista, losing themselves to touch and taste.
Then Zar pulled away and grinned. ‘We’d better get back before Father sends Jesco and Vidar to find us.’
They ambled back, holding hands, and Banno realised that he was completely happy. We’ve arrived and I really, really think what Zar and I have is growing into something special. He felt as if he could do no wrong.
Then something away to the east caught his eye: a wisp of vapours rising from behind the hills and climbing against the clouds. ‘See that?’ he said, puzzled. ‘Those dark patches against the low clouds? Could it be smoke?’
Zar frowned. ‘Perhaps it’s Tami – her cooking fire?’ The former spy was still missing, and they all presumed – or hoped – that she was scouting the wider region.
‘To make a plume that large? No, that’s too much smoke for one person’s fire – and Tami’s like a ghost.’ Banno stared. ‘You know, if it is a cooking fire, it would be a big camp.
They looked at each other wide-eyed when he realised what he’d just suggested.
Other people out here?
‘Perhaps it’s a grass fire, from lightning strikes or something?’ Zar suggested. ‘It’s summer – even though it’s cold – and these upland plains are quite dry.’
‘More likely,’ he agreed, then a darker thought hit him and he blurted, ‘What if it’s the imperial force? They might have survived and followed us, but somehow ended up over there?’
‘Gerda, I hope not,’ Zar breathed.
The plume was dissipating in the upper air, but a distinct trail was still wafting upwards. ‘I reckon it’s about two miles away,’ Banno said. ‘We should send a patrol up that hill – I mean, maybe it’s just a grass fire, but if it’s not . . . ?’
‘We need to tell my father,’ Zarelda said, and took to her heels. He threw up his hands, then pelted after her. They tore around the base of the hill, and into the camp, just as her father was preparing to address the travellers.
Someone had hauled a wagon into the central space and Raythe was climbing up. He looked surprised when spontaneous cheers burst out; after a moment he waved at them like a candidate for village council. It took some time for the boisterous crowd to fall silent.
Banno pulled Zar through the throng, wanting to get close so they could tell Raythe what they’d seen as soon as he was done speaking. As they found a space and caught their breath, he reached again for Zar’s hand.
‘Friends, friends,’ Raythe began, ‘we’ve—’
A shot rang out and hooves thundered as Rix Morro and Tasker Corbyn galloped into the camp, smoke trailing from Tasker’s flintlock.
‘Alarum!’ young Morro was shouting, ‘Alarum!’
A ripple ran through the crowd, as Tasker reared his mount and shouted, ‘It’s the imperials – they’re only a couple of hours behind us—’
One of Gravis’ tavern girls screamed and pandemonium broke out, men bellowing, children squealing and everyone shoving this way and that. Then another shot rang out and Jesco Duretto called out, ‘Stand still, you bloody idiots – there’s nowhere to run to, anyway.’
That momentarily stilled everyone, then Raythe called out, ‘Hold—’ and the cry was taken up by Elgus Rhamp and Mater Varahana. ‘Listen to me!’ Once he had everyone’s attention, Raythe pointed to the hill-fort above them. ‘So they found us: in a place we can defend.’
‘Aye,’ Elgus thundered, ‘and we’ll make the bastards wish they’d lost us—’
That lifted them, but Banno could taste the fear in the air.
Everyone knew the Bolgravian Empire never gave up.
‘Listen up,’ Raythe shouted, as the travellers huddled closer. ‘I want everyone and everything we possess inside that hill-fort. Mater Varahana, you’ll take charge of the withdrawal and deployment of wagons and tents. Sir Elgus will set the defences. Mistress Kemara will set up her field hospital inside the second tier. Master Foaley, send out scouts.’ He clapped his hands. ‘By Gerda, we’ve travelled three months and five hundred miles and we’ll not be beaten now!’
To emphasise his words, he conjured light around his hand and everyone cheered as if he’d just hurled lightning at the Bolgravs and they were already running.
‘Lord Vyre destroyed the frigate,’ people babbled, clinging to hope. ‘He’ll save us all.’
‘Now go,’ Raythe shouted, ‘and let’s defend this place like we would a fortress.’
‘Gerda is with us,’ Mater Varahana clarioned, and her cry was quickly taken up as everyone burst into purposeful movement. The civilians went for the wagons, while the fighting men crowded in around Sir Elgus.
Banno let go of Zar’s hand, saying, ‘I have to join Pa.’ Then he seized her and kissed her hard, not caring who saw. He tried not to think that it might be their last kiss.
‘What about that smoke we saw?’ she panted as they pulled apart.
‘We’ve got bigger problems than that,’ he told her. ‘If it is a grass fire and it burns this way, let�
��s hope it takes the imperials and not us. Go to your father. He’ll protect you.’
But Zar didn’t let go; instead, her face lit up. ‘That’s it,’ she exclaimed, ‘the fire – a sorcerer could make it come this way – Father and I – we could do that.’
*
Larch Hawkstone trudged across the grassland, eyeing the hill-fort uneasily. His fourteen remaining Borderers, all he had left after the demon-flood had melted the glacier, followed him, heads down and grumbling. Only the blind luck of being already on that rocky outcropping had saved them. No one wanted to be here any more.
Persekoi should’ve turned round and gone home, but those blind sorcerers won’t let him. And now Vyre’s found a place to defend.
And it was hard to feel they were on the side of right when his daughter and his woman – well, she was everyone’s woman, but she’d born him a daughter – were in that hill-fort.
‘Captain Hawkstone,’ an aide called, his voice as disdainful as ever, ‘Lord Persekoi will see you.’
‘What’s he want?’ Simolon wondered.
‘Likely it’s to order us to go in first,’ Hawkstone muttered, then he told Simolon, ‘Keep the lads together and if some bugger tries to commandeer our guns and powder, tell ’em to krag off.’
His Borderers were one of the few units to have got through the glacier collapse with their gunpowder stores intact. He suspected the only reason Persekoi hadn’t confiscated it already was because he was punishing his own men for losing theirs. Bolgravs were vindictively principled like that.
As he followed the aide through the ranks, he got a better look at what they faced: a hill-fort at the north end of the plateau, perched in front of a ravine. And beyond was a deep gloom in which one could almost imagine a conical mountain topped with towers and spires.
Must be the low cloud, he decided.
Then the sun dipped below the western hills and visibility plummeted, leaving him still unsure of what he’d seen. He found Persekoi squinting into the murk with his toadies, in confident mood.
‘Ah, the brave Hawkstone,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Finally, we run Vyre to ground, yuz. Now, justice will be served.’
One man’s justice is another man’s massacre, Hawkstone thought. How can I save my daughter from this?
‘Do we know what we face, sir?’ he asked, carefully deferential.
‘A few dozen mercenary scum, some hunters and a nest of vermin,’ Persekoi sniffed. ‘And Raythe Vyre.’ When he glanced at his own sorcerers, the two Izuvei immediately turned their blind eyes towards them and Hawkstone’s spine quivered. ‘We have special plan for Vyre.’
‘Good,’ he growled. ‘Bastard killed some of my best.’
‘One of my men is worth ten of yours and I lost eighty in that flood,’ Persekoi snapped. ‘Speak not to me of losses.’ He gestured towards the hill-fort. ‘You have not seen this like before, ney?’
‘No – even the Krodesh have outgrown wooden forts. It was likely put up by the same primitives who left those carved poles.’
‘Yuz, so I think. Is good – Vyre thinks he is safe, but crowded together makes easier kill. We trap them, attack at dawn. Your men – with gunpowder I kindly leave you – will make western perimeter. My scouts take east. No escape for Vyre this time, I think.’
We keep our own powder and we get picket duty – better than it could have been. ‘Yes, sir.’ Hawkstone saluted before the Bolgravian lord changed his mind.
He hurried back to his men and sent them around the edges of the hill-fort, a few hundred yards from the palisades, motioning each into position until they were all hidden in the rough land before the walls. He took Simolon right to the edge of the ravine – and they both went still, staring through the murk at a ruined city just two hundred yards away, on the other side of the churning waters of the confluence. It was some time before either could speak.
For Hawkstone, those ancient ruins were nightmarish. Such things shouldn’t exist. The Aldar were from the Pit, and so were sorcerers, whatever Scripture said.
‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ he told Simolon. ‘If they make a run for it, chances are it’ll be along this flank.’ He glanced along the ravine at what might be an archway spanning the gorge about a mile further west, but even as he peered, the setting sun plunged the canyon into deeper shade.
‘No heroics, Sim,’ he muttered. ‘If they come, slip away before raising the alarm. Let the Bolgravs do the fighting.’
He turned to go – and froze.
The two Izuvei were some twenty yards away, mounted on horses, and he was instantly paralysed by their sightless white orbs, remembering what they’d done to Vyre’s scouts.
‘You, Hawkstone,’ the aged male called, his Magnian slow and heavily accented. ‘This sector is yours, yuz?’
‘Yes, lord,’ he replied nervously.
The blind sorceress nudged her mount closer. ‘There is strong possibility of incursion here.’
‘Do you wish me to bring more men?’
‘Ney,’ the man replied. ‘Do not.’
‘You will raise alarm and fall back. We will be behind you, with soldiers, to face those who come,’ the woman said. ‘Vyre and his red-headed zuké – you know this woman?’
‘Sounds like Kemara Solus,’ he admitted. ‘A Ferrean woman?’
‘Ferrean witch,’ the sorceress corrected him. ‘We take her, burn her.’
Hawkstone shared a look with Simolon. He’d always rather fancied the healer – she looked like she enjoyed a good tumble, though folk said she had a temper. But if she really was a witch, he was glad he’d stayed away.
‘I thought she was just a healer?’ he dared ask.
‘She was on glacier, aiding Vyre,’ the blind man rasped. ‘There was a presence with her, seldom felt. She will suffer and die for her sins.’
‘So if we see them, do we shoot?’
‘Of course,’ the blind sorceress sneered. ‘Are you soldier? Lead ball kills as well as sword or spell.’
With that, the two Izuvei turned and headed west, which made Hawkstone wonder if perhaps there really was a bridge out there.
If a lead ball can kill a sorcerer, I’d love to put one each into your backs, he thought sullenly.
Then he almost pissed himself, because the sorcerer swivelled his head and stared at him through sightless eyes, before riding on.
*
‘No bombards,’ Sir Elgus noted. ‘You said they had bombards in the glacier, but I’m not seeing them now.’
Raythe grinned. ‘I was thinking the same thing. And something else – no wagons.’
‘They must’ve lost them all in the flood,’ Jesco said cheerily, patting one of the monsters carved into the entrance arch. ‘Poor buggers have probably been on half-rations too. Apart from the powder in their flasks – no more than a few shots at best, if they managed to keep it dry during the flood – they’ll be using those flintlocks as glorified spears.’
‘There’s still more than three hundred of them,’ Vidar noted. ‘Trained soldiers, well-used to bayonets and blades. And these palisades won’t keep them out.’
‘No one’s saying it’s going to be easy,’ Raythe replied. ‘But the palisades are going to limit their approach, concentrating them at certain points. If we can whittle them down, then meet them with determined force – and a few tricks – we have a chance.’
Just not much of one.
Everyone was inside the fort, and they’d been pleasantly surprised by how well the place had weathered: although overgrown, there were ditches where men with flintlocks could crouch and shelter from enemy fire, and the palisade fences might be wooden, but they were dug in deep and tightly bound up with durable cords made from a broad-leafed plant Varahana called flax.
Give me a regiment of Otravians and I could hold off an army here, for a while at least. But could a small force of mercenaries, a few able-bodied hunters and villagers and their wives and children stop even one concentrated attack? He doubted that very much.
‘It’s over a mile away and they’ve already posted pickets,’ Jesco noted.
‘That’s an easy run,’ Raythe noted. ‘A small group could slip past the pickets in the dark, get to the bridge and see if it’s intact, then be back inside an hour.’
‘Foaley reckons he saw two riders in Academia robes heading for the bridge,’ Vidar said.
Raythe groaned. ‘Imperial sorcerers.’ He remembered the pillars of ice in the glacier. ‘That bridge is our only chance of escape. I’ll have to take them on.’
Jesco frowned. ‘Raythe—’
‘I’ll take Kemara,’ he interrupted. ‘She and I . . . well, listen, she’s no novice. At the glacier, she and I achieved a meld. Do you know what that is?’
Elgus Rhamp whistled softly and even Jesco looked impressed. Varahana frowned, clearly feeling Kemara had kept far too much secret, but all she said was, ‘Well, aren’t you both just full of surprises.’
‘Kemara and I can deal with those sorcerers,’ Raythe said, more confidently than he felt. ‘That’s if they’re even still there. We’ll check the bridge and return fast as possible. If it’s safe, we’ll slip everyone across before dawn. If they attack in the meantime, Elgus, Jesco – it’s up to you to hold them at bay.’
‘We’ll hold until dawn,’ Elgus growled. Then he chuckled and added, ‘Unless they actually attack, in which case we’re kragged. But we’ll try and make it look like they shouldn’t. Now go – and come back quick, or we’re finished.’
*
Kemara was working with the Sisters of Gerda to set up her field hospital. It was fully dark now and the Bolgravs didn’t appear to be in any hurry to attack; perhaps they preferred fighting in daylight. That was a relief, but it gave everyone more time to be afraid. Then she looked up to see Raythe Vyre making for her purposefully.
‘Unless you’ve got a cache of medicinal herbs on you, I don’t have time to chat,’ she told Raythe, even though he had that ‘I want something’ look on his face.