Darksoul

by Anna Stephens

  Lanta was ugly with triumph. ‘And Rillirin? Do you still love her?’ she asked, caressing Dom’s shoulder as though he was a heifer she was considering purchasing.

  Dom blinked once. ‘Even though she carries my seed in her belly, even though her child could be born in Light or in Blood and seal the fate of the world either way, even though her past is my future and the destruction of Gilgoras itself may rest in her womb, she is nothing to me. My Lady, my love, is Dark and Bloody and beautiful.’

  Gilda rocked back on her heels and the shocked look she turned on Lanta showed an equal disbelief. Rillirin pregnant with Dom’s child?

  Born in Light or in Blood? The destruction of Gilgoras itself? What madness does he speak? How? When?

  ‘Who else knows this?’ Lanta snapped, the knife beneath Dom’s ribs now and all her smug superiority fled.

  ‘No one. Even she does not yet know. We can tell her when she gets here tomorrow. When we bring her home.’

  ‘Dom!’ Gilda shouted, grabbing for him, ‘what are you doing? Stop saying these things. This is Rillirin; this is your babe. You mustn’t—’

  Lanta pressed her knife into Dom’s hand. ‘No one else can know about this, Godblind. Kill her.’

  Gilda’s heart stopped. No. Holy Dancer, Lady clothed in sunlight, don’t make him do this. Not my boy. ‘Dom, just wait a—’

  ‘I said kill her. Now.’

  Dom stepped forward, madness gleaming in his face and along the edge of the blade.

  CRYS

  Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Approach to the south harbour, River Gil, outside Rilporin, Western Plain

  Rilporin was taking a bastard of a battering.

  A trebuchet was eating away at the stump wall that extended out from the side of First Bastion and down to the river to prevent overland access to the gate into the city. Throw by throw, stone by stone, the stump wall was eroding. And exactly how do the Mireces have a trebuchet anyway?

  They were too far away still for the shouts to reach them, but Crys saw the flurry of activity around the siege engine and figures sprinting from the shabby ditch and mound fortifications sprawling across the fields towards the river. They’d been spotted already. Damn.

  Rilporin itself still stood, proud and tall and scarred. There was scarlet flying from the palace towers and the sound of battle had a desperate edge to it, like they were tired. Like they’re losing.

  ‘All right, lads, this is going to be bad, but we’re used to that, and the Palace Rank needs us, so keep your heads down and your shields up. Those at the oars, start rowing. We need to dock and unload at speed, make space for the ships behind.’

  ‘That’s a Rank-made trebuchet, Captain,’ Tara said slowly. ‘Where did they get one of our trebs? And they’re flying scarlet.’

  ‘I know; Rastoth must be dead,’ Crys said, his voice low. ‘They wouldn’t fly it for anyone else. As for the treb, Durdil would’ve sent for reinforcements; maybe they brought them but had to abandon them?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Tara said, as unconvinced as he was. ‘Even if they’d managed to haul them all the way here, they’d have destroyed them rather than allow them to fall into Mireces hands. As for Rastoth, if he is dead, where does that leave us? Rivil’s the heir. If we stand against him it’s treason.’

  Crys frowned. ‘Then we’ve been committing that for a while now: Rivil’s a traitor who needs to die. He’s allied with the Mireces and, look, there’s another force over there, a large one. Must’ve brought mercenaries in – maybe they built the trebs? Doesn’t change our orders. We still have a war to win.’

  ‘No king to win it for, though.’

  ‘No king is better than no victory.’

  Tara looked as though she was going to argue, but then Mace was bellowing across the water from the lead galley and they hustled to the prow to listen.

  ‘All right, West Rank, pay attention,’ Mace shouted, hands around his mouth. Wolves and soldiers crowded the rails. ‘They’ve got a trebuchet on the stump wall, which is bad, and they’ve spotted us, which is worse. There’re Mireces making for the bank and they’ll have archers, so we’ll be under sustained volleys for at least the final mile to the city and probably artillery shot as well. I don’t need to tell you what a direct hit from that treb will do.

  ‘There’s no landing site between here and the city, so we sail straight into the south harbour, then cross the bridge to the gate into the city. We can expect supporting artillery and volleys from First Bastion and South Tower One, but even so, that bridge is wide and open for a reason – we’ll be sitting targets on it, so I want you moving fast. Understood? Pass the word back. Rowers, stand by for full speed, and for the Dancer’s sake, get your heads down.’

  He paused a second longer. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Tara muttered, ‘he never says good luck. Now I know we’re dead.’

  ‘Have you got this?’ Crys asked. He gestured at the galley on their starboard. ‘I’ll head over to this lot if you have, lend them a hand. The Wolves are good sailors, but we’ll need to tie up and disembark in a hurry. They might need my help.’

  ‘Go, go,’ Tara said and Crys grinned, saluted and ran for the side, pushed off the rail and threw himself at the Wolf ship. The water was far colder than he’d expected, his chainmail far heavier, but he only needed to swim a few strokes before Ash threw him a rope.

  ‘Are you bloody mad?’ he hissed as Crys hauled himself over the rail and collapsed in a puddle on the deck. ‘You could’ve drowned.’

  Crys waved away the comment. ‘What can I say?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I missed you.’

  Ash ran a hand through his curly hair and shook his head. ‘Crazy idiot,’ he complained, but there was a smile at the corner of his mouth. He indicated the haphazard pile of kit stowed around the mast. ‘There’s a spare shirt and jerkin over there. You may as well die dry.’

  ‘Ever the optimist,’ Crys said as he dragged the chainmail over his head, wincing as it pulled his hair. He jerked his head at Lim. ‘How’s the chief?’

  ‘Looking forward to bloodying his sword and probably reckless enough to get himself killed doing it.’ Ash sat on the rail with the ease of a born sailor and watched with open admiration as Crys shrugged out of his jerkin and shirt. Crys was blushing, but he still took a few extra seconds to wring out his wet shirt and use it to scrub away at his hair. When he pulled the material away from his face, Ash’s smile was even bigger and Crys’s mouth twitched at the appreciation.

  ‘Captain Tailorson, get your bloody armour back on before you get shot in that rather unimpressive chest,’ Tara called, generating a burst of laughter and jeers from her galley and his, a relieved breaking of the smothering tension, and Crys hurried into the fresh clothes and let Ash dump the wet mail back over his head and arms.

  ‘Enough,’ Mace yelled before Crys could respond, and there was little humour in his tone. ‘Rowers, full speed. Rest of you, protect yourselves. There’s Mireces on the northern bank; we’re about to have incoming.’

  The mood soured faster than it had sweetened, and Crys adjusted his mail and then unsheathed his sword and dagger, wiped the worst of the wet off them. He made his way to the fore. ‘Here to assist with the docking, Chief Lim,’ he said. ‘And anything else you need.’

  Lim didn’t acknowledge him; they’d had words after Sarilla’s death, words bitter and accusing from Lim, mostly uncomprehending from Crys. Words that recalled the first time they’d met and Dom’s foretelling and how the calestar had labelled Crys something other, something more. Apparently, during their time down in the tunnels as they fought and died and, eventually, drowned or lived, Lim had convinced himself that Dom’s knowing meant that Crys should’ve been able to save them all. Or at least save Sarilla, because when you’ve lost so much, when you’ve lost everything, you cling to the one thing that hurts the most and clutch it tight, so tight it makes you bleed.

  They watched in silence as the
banks slid by, as the Mireces loomed closer, as the trebuchet wound back for another shot. Lim wouldn’t speak to him, so Crys moved back to the middle of the deck, checked the rowers had shields between them and the Mireces. One man slumped, weeping silently as the bandages around his chest darkened with red, fresh blood over dried, his face a ghastly grey.

  Crys dragged him out of the way and took his place. ‘Have a bit of a rest, and then take over for me when you can, all right?’ he said with a smile, spat on his hands and got in a rhythm with the other rowers on his side.

  ‘Stand by for fire arrows,’ he heard someone shout alongside the stroke call.

  ‘Don’t panic! Panic gets you killed quicker’n anything,’ he shouted as a couple of rowers lost the rhythm, too busy staring at the bank blooming yellow and orange with flame.

  ‘Quicker than a blazing arrow in the face?’ someone muttered.

  ‘Quicker even than that,’ Crys said solemnly. ‘If you can’t row, shoot. If you can’t shoot or row, keep your bloody heads down.’

  ‘Watch your rhythm, rowers,’ Ash called and Crys looked up to see him on the yard at the top of the mast, quiver on his back, bow in hand. The first volley whickered across the water, thuds as bodkin arrowheads drove into wood, into shields. Screams as they drove into flesh. Crys flinched and rowed, the palms of his hands slippery with sweat and sore already.

  The muscles of his back were protesting as the helmsman called for a yet faster stroke. Crys gritted his teeth and hummed a marching song to keep the rhythm. He contemplated singing aloud and rejected it. There’s only so much horror these people can take. He swallowed the urge to giggle.

  The second volley was luckier – if you were a Mireces – with scores of arrows finding homes in soldiers and Wolves. More screams, drowned out suddenly in the thunderous smash of a stone impacting the stump wall ahead. A huge chunk of masonry tumbled in a slow parabola into the river.

  ‘Shit,’ he breathed, his humming stuttering into silence. Something about that crumbling wall stole the music from him. There was no clear water ahead, the river jammed with ships and oars clashing as the fleet funnelled closer together, those nearest the northern bank steering a course towards the southern, desperate to get out of range. Ragged flights of arrows arced into the sky and then down, from them to the Mireces this time, and Crys grinned savagely when screams that weren’t theirs pealed into the air.

  An arrow buzzed past his nose like a giant, bad-tempered hornet and Crys yelped, nearly dropping the oar. ‘Uh, anyone available to hold an extra shield?’ he asked the crew, and then kicked the unconscious man at his side. He didn’t move. ‘Fucking brilliant.’

  The trebuchet loosed again, all eyes drawn inexorably to the wall as more of it cracked and tumbled into the river. Even the Mireces paused, hoping no doubt that the whole thing would come down and they could storm the southern gate, cut off the West Rank from the city, strand them on the wrong side of the river with no cover.

  The stump wall held this time, but Crys’s sigh of relief didn’t last. Fire arrows thumped into the ships, some up in the sails, others on to the decks or into men and women. Four stood proud in the wood near where he sat. More screams, and shouts of alarm this time too, and panicked rushing as people ran to smother the flames. Smoke began rising and warriors and soldiers started to cough, rowers to falter as they choked. Ships began to slow.

  Rilporin’s shadow fell over him and Crys felt hope rise. ‘I said not to panic,’ he bellowed, ‘so don’t. It’s not much further. Smother the flames and keep going, fire’s not bad enough to sink us.’ There was no response, just the sound of archers loosing and Ash cursing from above, oars threshing the water, and men groaning or shrieking as arrows found them. The front galleys were turning into the harbour now, the stump wall protecting them from further assault, but there were scores more behind, wide open to attack.

  ‘Too slow,’ he muttered, ‘too bastard slow.’ Crys’s back and shoulders were liquid agony but there was no thought of slowing down now. Any delay here and the ships behind would never survive the volume of shafts, aflame or not.

  Arrows were flickering out from First Bastion, and they were shifting the catapult too. It couldn’t reach the treb, but it could reach the Mireces on the bank. Give them something else to think about. The southern gate opened and men sprinted out, across the road and on to the bridge, laying down protective volleys to cover the fleet.

  Others were gesturing wildly to the galleys to hurry up, and then the hull scraped the side of the dock at the furthest end of the harbour and Crys was up, dragging at the unconscious man and getting his shoulder into his armpit, a Wolf on his other side lifting him.

  They shoved the man up on to the quay and Crys sprinted the length of the deck, snatched up the bow line and leapt on to the dock, looping the rope three times around a cleat and hauling it taut. No time for a stern line and anyway, the current would twist the galley arse-out, leaving more space for the next. Didn’t really matter if they smashed themselves to kindling right now. It was the people that mattered.

  Crys reached out a hand and Lim took it, jumped the gap to dry land and between them they pulled the Wolves to safety. Ash was the last off, sliding down the mast and jumping the last few feet to avoid the flames. He scrambled on to shore. ‘Whole harbour will go up if we don’t put these out,’ he said.

  Crys looked the length of the dock; more ships were coming in under full sail, full speed, more than half of them alight. ‘This harbour’s fucked anyway. We’d never put all these out. Let’s get into the city and get orders. If Durdil or Mace want the flames fought, I’ll see what we can do.’

  ‘Ever the fucking hero,’ Lim snarled, but then he loped for the bridge without waiting for an answer.

  Crys waved the comment away and shoved Ash to get him moving. They ran together up the slope of the bridge and out on to its wide, open roadway. An arrow punched through a man’s chest and he fell in front of them, slamming into the stone. The Palace Rankers on the bridge had wicker shields to crouch behind, but the runners were big, obvious targets and not enough had grabbed their shields as they disembarked. They hurdled the body and kept running.

  Crys chanced a last look back, just as the trebuchet unwound and smashed a ship into kindling, screaming voices cut off in an instant. There were still dozens of vessels out there, some fully engulfed in flame, their sails gold and crimson with flags of fire crowning the masts, others with rowers dead or oars lost, floundering in the water, ramming other boats, tangling rigging and holing keels. His advice about not panicking was as dead as the corpses floating in the water, burnt, crushed and arrow-peppered.

  ‘We should—’ he began and Ash grabbed his hand as he began to slow and dragged him down the other side of the bridge, across the sward and in through the southern gate, hundreds of soldiers and Wolves piling in behind them while hundreds more died on the water.

  RILLIRIN

  Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  River Gil, outside Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  It was the blue shirts that did it.

  Seeing those flashes of forbidden colour under their armour was like a flame to the moth of her courage. Rillirin shrivelled, nausea surging in her chest and throat. Courage in the heat of battle was one thing; watching as you sailed towards them was another.

  ‘Rillirin! Rillirin, I need you.’ Dalli was sitting at the side, heaving at a long oar, and an arrow stood out from the rail a finger’s breadth from her head. There was another in the deck, and the back of Dalli’s neck glinted red with fresh blood.

  ‘Shield,’ she screamed, still pulling furiously, and Rillirin saw that the shield she’d been hiding behind had slipped, exposing her to the archers on the bank. Another volley and Dalli ducked, cursed badly enough that Rillirin blushed at it, and then uttered a wordless yell in her direction.

  Rillirin sucked in a breath and tensed as though sheer force of will would cause any arrows to bounce off her, then s
he fumbled up a spare shield and ran to Dalli’s side, pressed against her back with the shield just about covering them both. It was massive and rectangular, Rank-made, and its weight dragged at her arm, its face wobbling about within seconds and clattering into the rail and the deck as she fought to keep it steady. Her muscles trembled and the stitches in her back burnt like hot wire. She groaned and pressed her face into Dalli’s straining back.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Dalli gasped. Rillirin looked; they weren’t nearly there at all, there was clear water between them and the turning into the harbour. Still in arrow range, still in artillery range.

  ‘Liar,’ Rillirin grunted and then patted Dalli to show she didn’t mean it.

  There was a shrill cry of alarm, a shouted ‘Look out!’ and then the galley shuddered and jolted as another rammed into it. Rillirin knelt higher, trying to see over Dalli’s head as the Wolf cursed and fought the oar. The ship that had rammed them was well ablaze, sail burning merrily, the deck on fire. The men piloting it threw themselves off the deck towards them, desperate to escape the flames.

  Wolves tried to push the other galley away with oars but it was already beginning to list. Rillirin got one hand on Dalli’s shoulder, ready to pull her away if the flames came too close, but then the rigging tangled, there was a whump of flame as fire raced into their sail and the deck shuddered. Rillirin skidded sideways with the impact, smacking her head into the rail, and then the weight of the shield dragged her through the gap and into the Gil.

  The shield was heavy, banded with metal, and Rillirin scrabbled with her free hand at the strap as it began to sink, carrying her deeper into the cold.

  The current was swift and she had lost all sense of up and down by the time she finally freed her arm. The last of the stale air in her lungs carried her towards the surface and when her face broke into the air she sucked it in, three deep breaths before she even opened her eyes.