by Matthew Ward
Kai’s shield shuddered under a mace-blow. His backswing sent another knight into Otherworld’s mists. Cataphracts forced the gap wider with spear-thrust and armoured bulk.
“Close up!” roared a grizzled knight at the shield ring’s heart. “Drive them out!”
Elspeth spun about. A mace-blow meant to split her skull merely grazed it. She dropped, no longer an unstoppable shard of the divine, but a defenceless, huddled shape.
“Ashanal!”
Kai slammed his heel into a shield and spurred forward. Knights scattered before moonfire, and the way fell open. The mace-wielder readied another blow and died with steel in his spine.
Elspeth lay unmoving, black blood oozing beneath ashen hair.
Prydonis knights closed in.
Kai dropped from his saddle and stood astride her, weathering blows on shield and armour. A claymore’s strike scattered scales from his right sleeve. He roared defiance and sent the wielder sprawling with a strike of his boot. A mace clanged off his shield. Another struck wide his sword.
And then Devren was there, keening like a man possessed as he hacked at shield and helm. And behind, vengeful cataphracts and thirsty spears. The grizzled Prydonis fell, a spear in his open mouth. An Icansae Immortal hoisted the stolen drakon-banner high. What had been a bastion of flesh and steel became rout and vengeful pursuit.
Kai let his weapon fall and stooped at Elspeth’s side. Was she dead? How would he face the Goddess thereafter?
An eyelid fluttered.
Kai forced himself to breathe. “You should be more careful, Ashanal. Arrogance is more dangerous than a sword. And never more so than in battle.”
Awarding his concern a filthy look, she ignored his proffered hand and propped herself to a sitting position among the dead. Pale fingers probed her scalp and came away black. She stared at them a long moment, studied disinterest failing to conceal trepidation. Then her jaw set – her eyes with it – and she scrambled to her feet.
Yes, so very like Melanna had once been, before the years had honed her.
A cloth-caparisoned war horse halted at Kai’s side, golden serpents bold upon red silk. The rider bowed low in the saddle and held a notched Tressian sword out by its blade.
“Their captain’s weapon, my Emperor. Offered with thanks by your servant, Prince Naradna Andwar of Icansae.”
The lightness of the voice spoke to youth, its enthusiasm to blood afire with battle. Robes and scale armour – by tradition of lighter, closer make than that Kai himself wore – suggested a slight figure, though one wiry enough to wield the heavy war spear, and to wield it well. The helm too was of traditional Icansae design, close set and framed by a silver halo. Beneath it gleamed a mask of gold, forged in beatific likeness.
Kai searched his memory, but the name Naradna eluded him. He was tempted to offer rebuke, for putting personal acclaim above all else. But brashness was the prerogative of the young, and he’d been little better at Naradna’s age.
“Keep it, as a trophy hard-won.”
“Yes, savir.”
Naradna withdrew the sword and spurred away. Kai turned his gaze south and west to where the final gate lay lost to smoke. Yes, he’d have been wrong to rebuke Naradna, when he himself had veered so far from purpose. Ahrad had to fall. All else would wait.
A cataphract cantered close, leading Kai’s steed by the reins. The Emperor thanked him, and regained his saddle. Behind, the survivors reformed their double line, Kos Devren a moody presence at their head. And in front, Elspeth stared eastward, her expression cold and distant beneath the smear of dried blood.
“You are tired of battle, Ashanal?”
Yes, screamed her expression.
“No,” she said. “But my horse is lost.”
Kai leaned down from the saddle and spread his hand.
“You have leave to join your sisters if you wish, or you may ride with me. I suspect you’re a slight enough burden.”
She stared for a long, baleful moment. “My mother bade me not leave your side until your destiny is met.”
Her fingers closed around his.
“Loose!” shouted Lieutenant Borgiz.
The volley hissed down. The demon stalked on through the smoke, on through the storm of quarrels, crossing the rubble crest and plunging into the raging fires of the middle bailey. Green eyes blazed beneath the helm and the starlight spear arced out, scattering bodies. The Immortals and cataphracts of its escort trampled survivors to offal. Sevaka railed at the uselessness of it all. At her fear of the creature come straight out of myth to kill her. And at the deafness of fools most of all.
“Ignore the shadowthorns!” she shouted. “Aim for the demon’s eyes! Its eyes!”
Wood smacked against the stone walkway. Winches rattled and clacked as the pavissionaires wound back drawstrings. Bolts were set in place. Crossbows presented above the parapet.
“Loose!” shouted Borgiz.
The pavissionaires of the 7th ignored Sevaka’s command as they had all others before. Instead, they sent another worthless volley into a body shielded by armour no ephemeral bolt could pierce, and against cataphracts who’d no hope of taking the walls alone. A ballista shot might have stopped the demon. It would certainly have staggered the brute, but too many of the siege engines were ablaze. Assuming any would have obeyed Sevaka’s orders.
It was one thing to be placed in command of the wall. Another to make a Psanneque’s voice count. Gazing west towards the inner harbour, Sevaka saw the masts of the merchant hulk blazing against blue skies. Was her Zephyr burning also?
She stared across the muster field where the bulk of the 7th formed up alongside the ochre shields of Lord Strazna’s Knights Fellnore, and the ragtag array of banners and shields Lady Sarravin had assembled. What had begun as a sally looked more and more like Ahrad’s last hope… assuming she could bring order to the ranks. To depart the gate as a mob would only invite slaughter, and leave the citadel bereft.
Another volley hissed out, this one sharper, whistling. The demon raised a gauntleted hand to shield his face. Spent arrows scattered away from darkened steel. Another followed, and another. Faster than the crossbows of the 7th. Grey cloaks and yew bows atop the drum tower south of the gatehouse, Thaldvar with one foot braced on the rampart as he directed his borderers’ shots.
The demon shrank back into the smoke. A cry of victory went up from the battlements.
Sevaka cheered with the rest. In a day of disaster, small triumphs counted as never before.
A kraikon loomed out of the smoke, a sword taller than Sevaka in one massive hand and a shield like a fortress door in the other. It shouldered a trio of cataphracts aside, scattering men from their horses, then swung at the demon’s head.
Starlight checked steel with an ear-splitting screech. Molten metal hissed and spattered. Undeterred, the kraikon lumbered on, golden light sparking from its armour. Still shielding its eyes from the borderers’ arrows, the demon thrust. Spear’s strike raised a great molten gout across the kraikon’s shield. The heavy sword came about in response, too fast for the demon to evade. An antler shattered. The demon staggered. The cheer from the battlements redoubled.
Before the construct recovered, the spear punched through steel plate and bronze beneath. Sunlight flared across the smoke and the kraikon toppled sideways, lifeless with the flight of its animating spark.
The cheer faded. The demon surged on.
Sevaka glanced behind the ramparts. The 7th weren’t ready. The spear would come down. The last wall would fall, and half of the Eastshires alongside.
Then the dancing smoke parted, revealing warriors forgotten in the horror of the moment. A motley wedge of soldiers and knights, filthy from battle’s fortune. And at their head, a woman who could not die.
“Essamere!”
Rosa screamed the challenge at the top of her lungs as she crossed the rubble of the middle wall. Let the shadowthorns hear. Let them turn. Let them ready shields and form ranks to face her, so long as
the demon turned also.
Even as her breakneck stride closed the distance, cataphracts broke apart and wheeled to face the enemy at their rear; the Immortals’ rear ranks turned and locked shields. The demon swung about, green eyes blazing beneath a scarred and broken-antlered helm.
Bolts and arrows hissed out from the wall, aimed at the demon no longer but into the backs of Immortals whose shields now faced away. Men slumped. Gaps opened up in the lines. Rosa aimed for the nearest. Shields clashed together to bar her path. Casting her own aside, she lowered her shoulder to the join.
She heard the wet ripping sound as a sword sliced her flesh, felt the shuddering scrape as steel struck bone. Then her blade was between an Immortal’s ribs, and Ragda at her side, a wordless bellow on his lips, and his mace unstoppable. Ragda fell, a sword in his belly and another in his spine, but others flooded into the gap he’d made, swearing and howling like damned souls.
The way was clear.
Rosa struck down an Immortal’s blade and ran for the bronze husk of a fallen kraikon. Boots skidded. Momentum drove her on. She reached the construct’s shoulder and hurled herself at the demon, sword gripped two-handed above her head, point levelled at those blazing green eyes.
At the last moment, the demon twisted. Rosa’s sword buried itself in mantle and armour. His deafening bellow swept the middle bailey. A hand dashed Rosa to the ground. Ribs snapped. Then he was astride her, knee planted against the mud, and a hand larger than her head splayed across her chest.
“She saved you.” The sour steam of his breath rose from beneath his helm. “She blessed you with new life. Look what you do with it. Have you no shame?”
“I… never… asked for this.” Rosa twisted, struggling to break free.
He leaned closer, eyes blazing and voice thunderous. “You should fight for her. Instead, you side with the Dark.”
Rosa didn’t know what he meant, nor did she much care. She saw only that her sword, its blade still buried in his shoulder, was within reach.
“I fight for Essamere,” she gasped. “For the Republic. For my friends!”
Straining fingers closed about the sword.
The demon howled and reared up as the sword came clear. Autumn leaves bled from the wound, gold and amber dancing on invisible winds. The starlight spear struck the sword away. He seized Rosa about the throat and hoisted her high into the torrent of leaves, the bones of her neck grinding beneath his grip.
“Then die with them!” he roared.
The spear blurred. Rosa’s world turned to fire.
Sevaka clutched the rampart, helpless to do anything but watch. “Rosa!”
The demon drove his spear clear through Rosa’s chest and into the trampled mud at the bailey’s eastern edge. She lay silhouetted against the flames, back arched and body held upright on heels and on the impaling spear. Stillness among the raging battle.
Sevaka drew her cutlass and ran for the stairs.
The rampart shuddered to the rattle and boom of the opening gate. A chorus of buccinas rang out.
Lady Sarravin’s sortie was at last on the move.
The demon turned about in a swirl of umber leaves. A flurry of bolts rent the air. He fell to one knee, his flailing hand sweeping a luckless cataphract from the saddle.
“Death and honour!”
The Knights Fellnore led the charge, banners raised. Lances swept cataphracts from saddles and bit deep into embattled Immortals. Others thumped home against the demon’s smoke-wreathed body. Still he staggered on, scattering knights from destriers and trampling them underfoot. The flood of leaves thickened, their colour dark as rotten mulch.
The demon’s abandoned spear turned dull where once it had shone like the heavens. Mocking laughter mingled with the boom of drums as that same light gathered about his upraised fists.
“For the Queen!” he cried.
Sevaka froze, the wrath of moments before now cold as ice.
“Get off the walls!” she shouted. “Get—”
The demon’s fists came down in a flurry of black leaves.
Twelve
Sevaka’s eyes cracked open. The remnant of the inner gateway loomed through a storm of black leaves and bitter smoke, broken teeth in the wall’s shattered jaw. Where the demon’s blows had sundered the outer walls for much of their span, it had barely broken the gatehouse of the innermost. Already, king’s blue and ochre surcoats filled the gap, smoke-stained and bloodied.
“Captain.”
Lady Sarravin’s greeting barely pierced ringing ears. She offered a dust-streaked hand. Sevaka took it, ignoring creaking bones as she stood. Her eyes fell upon the rubble and the patches of king’s blue cloth that spoke to buried bodies. Hundreds more dead, and she lucky not to be among them.
“Borgiz didn’t listen. No one did.”
“Make them listen. Your mother would have found a way.”
“I don’t have a mother. I am…”
“… yourself alone, I remember. But if you refuse to let one name define you, why allow the other to do so?” Lady Sarravin shook her head. “Can you fight?”
New sounds gathered as the muted whine faded from Sevaka’s ears. The thump of running feet. The faltering hymn as a gold-robed proctor sought to rouse the shield wall to fervour. Even the crackle of flames seemed muted. She glimpsed a battered helmet half-buried in the rubble, antlers broken and remembered the demon scattering to drifting leaves in the moment the walls shook. And before that… Rosa.
Could she fight? “Yes.”
“Good. They’ve fallen back, but they’ll come again. I mean to buy all the time I can. Even if it’s tallied only in minutes.”
Sevaka’s heart sank further. “Then it’s over?”
“The citadel stands, but it’s not enough. I’ve ordered the west gates opened. The civilians are already on the move, and I’ve ordered what remains of the 11th to keep the shadowthorns off their backs. The rest of us? We spit defiance…” Lady Sarravin brushed a hand against a hunk of stone – the remains of a pillar somehow come intact through the gatehouse’s fall “… and we give this grand old lady one last place in the histories.”
Sevaka gazed back across the inner bailey, at the drifting cinders of a muster field where so many had celebrated the previous night. How quickly the world turned, and fate with it.
“You don’t have to stay,” murmured Lady Sarravin. “Your ship can’t leave, for there’s no one left to work the locks, and your crew have gone with the rest. But you might find a horse.”
A bright spot on a dark morning, but not enough to quash the insult, kindly though it had been offered. The same insult Sevaka had endured for months as a Psanneque. The same insult her mother had levied at every opportunity. Psanneque or Kiradin, no one expected any more from her than the least she could give.
And besides, Rosa was still out there, somewhere in the smoke.
She gripped her cutlass tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Kai Saran distrusted the quiet. And not just the quiet. There he stood, on the cusp of a victory that overshadowed any won by his sires, and yet where was the joy? That he already knew the answer only made matters worse.
Devren cantered out of the west. Blood caked the warleader’s right arm, and his shield was battered and scarred. But beneath his narrow helm, his eyes held all the satisfaction Kai’s own lacked.
“The Goddess’ equerry has fallen…”
Elspeth sniffed disparagingly from her perch behind Kai’s saddle. Devren offered her an unfavourable glance and pressed on.
“… but the wall is humbled. The breach is no more than four hundred paces wide, and held at the crest. I’ve already ordered archers and catapults brought up to end matters.” A smile gleamed beneath the helm. “It will take a few hours yet, but the fortress of Ahrad is yours.”
Kai looked back across the thinning smoke of the outer bailey. At the shieldsmen scouring the last defenders from the eastern walls, and the Immortals mustering beneath their banners.
Ahrad was his, and yet he’d never thought so great a victory could ring so hollow.
“No.”
Devren stiffened in his saddle. “No?”
“Most of the victory belongs to the Goddess, and you’d have me yield the rest to peasant arrows? Where is your pride, old friend?”
He felt Elspeth’s hand on his shoulder. Her breath warm on his ear. “This is what my mother wished for you. The destiny of the House of Saran. The triumph is yours to claim. You need only reach out your hand.”
“And what do you know of triumph?” snapped Devren. “You should be tending the fallen, savim, not playing at battle.”
“I might say as much to you,” she replied. “You’ve clearly lost your taste for it.”
“My Emperor—”
Kai raised his fist. “Enough!”
“I hear the old way calling you, my Emperor,” said Elspeth. “How would you look back on this day? How would you wish your heirs to recall your deeds?”
The old way. The charge. The offering of blood and steel that honoured the foe, and in turn honoured the gift-giver for his sacrifice. The tradition by which crowns were earned and stolen, and which Kai had flouted in allowing the Goddess to aid the fight. For all that Ahrad was but the first step on a road without obvious end, those traditions held power.
In embracing that truth, Kai felt hollowness recede from his heart.
“Rouse my spears, warleader. Let the drums roar. One last charge.”
Trumpets sounded through the smoke.
“Here they come!” shouted Lady Sarravin. “Show them how the 7th fights!”
Shields locked across the uneven crest of fallen masonry. A wall of flesh and willow to stopper the gap in stone. The 7th didn’t hold the gap alone. Ochre surcoats of the Knights Fellnore dotted the line, survivors of the demon’s last blow. The rearmost rank of the line was full of mismatched uniforms and no uniforms at all. Church provosts in their drab greys. Citadel constables. Even a few proctors in flowing gold, sun-staves readied like spears above the line of shields. And at Sevaka’s side in the centre of the line, where Lady Sarravin stood and the 7th’s banners challenged the skies, the grey cloaks of borderers.