by Matthew Ward
She wasn’t a person, wasn’t ephemeral. She was eternal. She was myth.
Let the shadowthorns see how an eternal fought.
“Essamere!” The fury of the battle cry bore Rosa over the gatehouse rubble and down towards the ruined tower. “Essamere!”
Warned by her howl, the rearmost shadowthorns spun about. An Immortal took the rim of her borrowed shield in his throat. Another screamed as her sword pierced scales. A third hacked down. Rosa staggered as his blade bit through flesh and cracked against her skull.
Pain flared black, but pain too was ephemeral. Rosa screamed to speed its passage. Red wrath rose in its place. The third Immortal died with his throat torn away. Beyond, king’s blue shields rose taller as the pressure against them slackened.
“Death and honour!”
The cry went up from within the ring of shields, a growl of hope rekindled rising beneath. The Hadari, caught between a woman who could not die and the valour of Tressia reborn, faltered.
And Rosa lost herself to the red.
The shout rang out as Sevaka reached the battlements.
“Get clear!”
A dozen men hurled themselves aside as the fireball roared over the parapet. It snatched one from the rampart and bore him screaming into the inner bailey. Flame crackled across tents and outbuildings. Horses whinnied distress. Even as Sevaka regained stolen breath, another fireball crashed home against the northern bastion, setting wooden hoarding and ballista alight. In the smoke-strewn slaughter of the outer bailey, isolated soldiers dwindled and perished as Hadari spears pressed forward across the rubble-choked moat.
Sevaka forced her way along a rampart crowded by pavissionaires of the 7th. They parted reluctantly. Word of a Psanneque had spread. Even with the walls shuddering and the outer bailey crowded with shadowthorns, prejudice held sway.
“Captain Psanneque!” The ranks that had parted so sluggishly for Sevaka showed no such impediment for Lady Sarravin. “What brings you to my wall?”
On the tower behind, a kraikon heaved a last mighty crank of a ballista’s windlass. A bolt the girth of a tree shot away and ploughed a bloody furrow in the outer bailey.
“I’m supposed to make my crew available to the ready garrison’s commander.”
Lady Sarravin snorted. “Major Tsemmin? No one seems to know where he is. Nor the castellan.” Pulling a lieutenant aside, she took his place on the rampart and stared towards the ruin of the outer wall. “Likely they’re beneath all that.”
If a night’s carousing retained any embrace on Emilia Sarravin, nothing showed. Her uniform was crisp as ever, her back arrow-straight. Only a wisp of hair, escaped from a plait, suggested anything other than the pinnacle of composure. Sevaka, in her weatherworn naval coat and with her disarrayed hair hidden by her cocked hat, felt shabby alongside.
Sevaka’s throat twitched. “And Ro… And Commander Orova?”
“Raven only knows.”
“Then who’s in command?”
“In here? I am, until someone tells me otherwise.” She shrugged. “Out there? I’ve sent a herald. Until then, we hold the line until we can’t hold it any longer, and hope the shadowthorns wear themselves out.”
A fireball shattered against the upper rampart. Flame spattered across the battlements, the hot rush of burning oil bitter. Soldiers screamed as the fires took them. Others rushed forward with spread cloaks to smother the flames.
“What are they playing at?” murmured Lady Sarravin. “They need stone shot. Fire won’t breach these walls.”
Maybe so, but it was doing a fine job elsewhere. Half of the middle bailey was ablaze, and the inner in dire likelihood of following suit. “What brought down the wall?”
“I didn’t see, but we’ve two left.” A shadow of doubt crowded Lady Sarravin’s eyes. Talk all she might about Ahrad’s strength, the outer wall was a sore loss. “And surprise is a flighty bird. Once flown, it’s gone for good. The shadowthorns have shown their hand. Now they’ll feel our fist.”
Pavissionaires thickened on the middle bailey’s wall, volley after volley of quarrels hissing away to join the inner wall’s ballista-fire.
“Last I heard, the shadowthorns haven’t even approached the cross-walls,” Lady Sarravin went on. “If they’re content to die in the east, I’m happy to oblige. And I’ve had the bridges cut, just in case they change their minds.”
Sevaka nodded. The cross-walls split the outer and middle baileys along the north-south line, effectively dividing them into two separate east and west expanses, each served by its own set of gates. The cross-walls were connected to the curtain walls by narrow bridges – once cut, an attacker faced an uncertain climb across smooth stone through a storm of crossbow fire.
“And in the west?” she asked.
“Clear for now,” Lady Sarravin replied. “Your crew… are they steady?”
Sevaka forgot Alith’s tender years. “As stone.”
“Then I’ll borrow them and you, if I may? I can always use more eyes in the west.”
Sevaka nodded assent, though it wasn’t a question, despite the phrasing. Strange to feel resentment, even among so much death. She didn’t want to fight from Ahrad’s walls, but to be sent away? That smacked of the Psanneque curse at work. At least Lady Sarravin had tact enough to make it a suggestion of usefulness, rather than outright dismissal.
“Of course, commander.”
“Good. I’m very grateful to…” She stared past the middle wall. “Queen’s Ashes, but I don’t believe it.”
Sevaka followed her gaze to the outer bailey, to a swathe of dark blue amidst the carnage – Tressian soldiers, shields levelled and hoving a bloody path across the corpse-choked field towards an embattled shield ring. Even as Sevaka watched, the advancing shield wall ground to a halt; a cataphract charge broke apart on its hedge of blades. As the Hadari assault crumpled, the shield ring of erstwhile victims broke apart and ran headlong to bolster their rescuers’ formation.
Between smoke and the eerie moonlight, it was too far to recognise faces, but Sevaka didn’t need to see to know. Savage glee mingled with heartfelt relief. “It’s Lady Orova.”
The lieutenant so lately displaced from his position on the walls shot her a contemptuous look. “Could be anyone.”
Lady Sarravin glowered. “Your superiors are talking, Lieutenant Borgiz. Have a care they hear nothing unfortunate.”
Borgiz flinched and stared away.
Lady Sarravin’s lips twisted apology. “You’re sure, captain? My eyes aren’t what they were.”
“I know what she’s capable of,” Sevaka replied. “And anyway, does it matter?”
It mattered greatly to her, of course, but to Lady Sarravin it was a balancing act. Were a few score survivors worth the risk of a sally?
Lady Sarravin’s brow set in determination. “Captain Psanneque? The walls are yours.”
Sevaka blinked. While it was true that a naval captaincy – even for so small a vessel as the Zephyr – meant she outranked everyone on the walls save Lady Sarravin herself, the reversal from moments before set her head spinning. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll leave you my pavissionaires, but I’ll need the rest. You boy!” She hollered this last to a herald crouched in the shadow of the drum tower’s stairway. “Lord Strazna’s down below. Tell him I’m calling in his debt from Talnost. I want his knights at the gatehouse. All of them.”
The herald bobbed his head and scurried away down the stairway.
“You mean to sally out?” Sevaka still couldn’t quite believe it. “Into that?”
Lady Sarravin nodded. “It’s mostly cavalry out there at the moment and no archers to speak of. If we go out hard and locked tight, they’ll back off. Might even get some lost lambs back into the fold. The 7th does not abandon its own.”
The cataphract’s sword hacked down. Rosa caught the blow on her shield and lunged. The shadowthorn slipped from the saddle and his horse bolted, dragging the dying man away across the churned g
round of the outer bailey.
Cheers rang out behind as the cavalry wheeled away, their bloody lesson learned.
“On!” Rosa shouted, her voice thick with blood and dust. “If their spear bands catch up to us, we’re dead!”
The shield wall shook apart and resumed its march to the middle gate. Even in the drifting smoke and blood moon’s uncertain light Rosa made out pavissionaires on the battlements.
“Banners high!” she shouted. “I don’t want to get shot!”
A backward glance confirmed the tattered company flags of the 2nd stood tall above helm and halberd, the spear-points bright atop their banner poles. It also revealed the gleam of gold, and spears lowered to the charge.
“Shadowthorns behind!” cried Captain Ragda. “Shields!”
The formation shuddered to a halt, steel rims clashing as shields locked anew. Rosa itched to leave her position, to stand against this new charge as she had so many others, but knew better than to succumb to temptation. The double circle of overlapping shields held only as long as it went unbroken. And Ragda knew his business – even if he were a Prydonis. What she’d have given for a hundred like him at that moment… Or fifty Knights Essamere.
Dark rain hissed from the wall, the vast shadows of ballista-shot flanked by a swarm of quarrels. Screams split the air. Fresh cheers shook the shield ring.
The cataphracts spurred away, leaving dead behind.
“Are we clear, Captain Ragda?” said Rosa.
“As a spring morning! Courtesy of the 5th’s shooting.”
Rosa’s neighbour spat. “The 5th? Probably aiming at us and shot wide.”
She stared up at the looming cliff of the middle wall. How far to the gate? A hundred yards, maybe less. Hard to tell with the gatehouse drowning in smoke from the bombardment. For all that, safety was in sight. Or the illusion of such, for there was no telling if whoever commanded would dare risk the inner bailey by their rescue. It didn’t matter. Dead was dead, whether at the gate or beneath the walls. Better to seek salvation than assume it lost.
So why the hesitation?
“We’ve shadowthorn spears marching straight for us,” called Ragda. “We’ve outstayed our welcome.”
That settled it. There was no future in being caught between the anvil of infantry’s shields and the hammer-blow of a cataphract charge.
She opened her mouth to issue an order and closed it again without a word. The pavissionaires were still shooting. Not behind Rosa’s pitiful shield ring as before, but to her front. At the billowing smoke where the gateway should have been.
The Dusk Wind gusted. The smoke twitched but didn’t wholly clear. It wasn’t smoke at all, but the folds of the demon’s cloak, pierced in a dozen places with crossbow quarrels. His mantle bristled with them. The starlight spear shone in his hand. Intent blazed brighter still.
“Queen’s Ashes,” breathed Rosa’s neighbour. “What is that?”
Dark liquid gushed from hidden openings in the overhanging rampart. Steam rose from shoulders and antlered helm. The demon roared and staggered, one hand clutching at stone. Then he held aloft the starlight spear that had already humbled Ahrad once that day.
“To the gate!” Rosa shouted. “Bring him down!”
She broke ranks and ran headlong towards the demon, already knowing she’d never reach him in time.
The spear struck with a voice like thunder.
Eleven
Ashana cried out, her knees buckling. Melanna caught her and lowered her gently beside the pool. The Goddess weighed no more than a child, her once-youthful body withered and shrunken. Her hair, no longer blonde but ash-white, hung lank against her skull.
And in the sky, the moon throbbed deep and wrathful crimson.
“Help me stand.” Ashana’s voice was a parched echo. “Moonlight is finite, and so am I.”
“It’s killing you.” Melanna’s certainty was that of the dawn, already paling eastern treetops. “You must stop.”
Ashana shook her head. “A bargain was made, and a bargain between ephemerals and divine binds all parties. I give of myself to empower him.”
The Huntsman. The light he wielded wasn’t his own, but that of his mistress. But the price? Melanna stared up at the statue of Ashana that was not Ashana, wreathed in thorns. The goddess of yesterday. How had she passed?
Melanna shivered, her thoughts thirteen years in the past. The night after her mother’s fall from horseback, when fussing physicians had done little save bar a weeping child from the bedside, and sent riders to a campaigning father fated to return too late. As Melanna had cried herself hoarse in her bedchamber, moonlight had banished the darkness. A hand had found hers. At six winters old she’d lost one mother and gained another. And now…?
“What if I strike a new bargain?” She fought the tremor in her voice. “Two walls have fallen. Trust to our warriors for the third.”
“How many more lives will that cost?” said Ashana. “How much time? You know what’s at stake. The Dark must be driven out of the Republic, or all will suffer. Your father plays his part. I must play mine. And when the time comes, so must you.”
“Then I was right before,” Melanna said bitterly. “This is a lesson.”
Withered lips framed a sad smile. Ashana stared down at her reflection in the still waters of the pool. “Everything’s a lesson if you allow yourself to learn. For the longest time, I never thought it possible that I might age. I yearned for the furrows that spoke to years lived and wisdom garnered. Anything to dispel the illusion of one too fragile to go unguarded in a wicked world; a treasure set on a pedestal but never really seen. Now I resent every wrinkle.”
Was she any longer speaking of herself? The words reflected too much of Melanna’s own life, and her struggles against the traditions of the Golden Court.
A crooked finger tapped the water. The reflection rippled apart. “What would Inga say if she saw me now?” Ashana murmured. “What would any of them?”
Melanna glanced away, embarrassed to intrude on private contemplation. “Mother…”
“Help me stand.” Determination blossomed. “One last effort.”
Weighed down by heavy heart, Melanna obeyed.
The distant shield ring had stood firm where so many others had crumbled, a tide line of golden dead testament to the murderous work of the warriors within. Of the black-headed maces and wicked claymores that made mock of armour. Kai had learned not to underestimate the valour of the Knights Prydonis, whose emblem of a fiery drakon claimed descent from the Age of Kings.
“Saran Amhyrador!”
The distant Icansae column reached the gallop, serpent banners streaming above narrow helms. Elspeth’s laughter billowed above the drums. “How glorious!”
Devren, his spear lost to the fortunes of battle and his cloak torn, regarded her morosely. “There’s no glory in needless death, Ashanal.”
Kai nodded, his sentiments torn. Glorious death was a man’s final currency before disaster, a reckoning that settled all debts. But the Icansae prince sought only to forge a name, and the corpses about the Prydonis shield ring already spoke to the price.
Even robbed of their walls and dismayed by the Huntsman’s fury, the Tressians fought like cornered rats. Elspeth’s sisters walked the captured ground under lunassera guard, bringing their healing touch to those who could be saved while the lunassera brought final mercy to those who could not.
Elspeth’s sisters, but not Elspeth herself, who’d shown no inclination to matters of life since she’d plucked him from the Raven’s grasp six months before.
And as for the Icansae prince? Better he live to earn his name than die with glory.
Kai drove back his spurs, the moonfire sword blazing to challenge the new dawn.
“Ashanael Brigantim!”
A gauntleted hand reached down out of the swirling dust. Rosa grabbed it and clambered to her feet. Her whole body felt like a fading bruise. She nodded her thanks to Captain Ragda, whose moustachioed face was pal
e beneath his open helm. The backwash of the demon’s strike had hurled her away like a toy.
“Blessed Lumestra,” he breathed. “That’s what happened to the outer wall?”
Rising sun gave shape to shadows beyond the drifting dust. Like the outer before it, the middle gatehouse was gone, and the wall over which it had commanded passage naught but a rubble mound and buried bodies. Beyond, banners flew dark against fires raging behind the third and final gate.
Antlers rose out of the dust, silhouetted against flame. Buccinas sounded, and a storm of quarrels burst from the walls. Hadari trumpets flared. Immortals and cataphracts, drawn from across the carnage of the middle bailey, hurried to form up around the demon, silk banners shining in reflected firelight.
Muttered prayers rippled through the smoke and dust, fervent even through the whine of bombardment and the juddering thunder of hooves. Rosa took measure of the soldiers gathered about her and found little encouragement in bloodless expressions and wide eyes. She shared their horror, but couldn’t afford to surrender to it. She’d a duty to Essamere. To the Republic. To those she loved.
Sevaka…
Rosa set her back to the carnage and held aloft her sword.
“We’ve family beyond that wall, and friends upon it. The demon can be hurt! And if it feels pain, Otherworld has a claim. I mean to send it howling to the Raven. Need I do so alone?”
Too late, she regretted a form of words that made offering of the demon’s death. But gazes once averted now met hers with determination renewed. Colour returned to filthy faces. Swords returned her salute.
Rosa turned again towards the inner gate, and broke into a run.
The knight screamed as Kai’s moonfire sword split steel helm, her claymore falling from nerveless hands. Spears splintered on shields. Others punctured steel plate and weary flesh. On the shield ring’s far side, beyond the fluttering drakon-banner, the Icansae charge crashed home in perfect mirror.
Elspeth vaulted the faltering shields entirely, wild laughter in her wake. Her horse slewed on the muddy ground before the Prydonis banner. What should have been an ungainly sprawl became lithe dismount. Armour rushed red as her dagger did wicked work to knights who’d thought their danger ahead, not behind.