‘Major Tailorson, we’ve all lost someone we love in this war. This is the safest place in the city,’ Renik said, gently now. ‘So allow me to let you in on a not-so-secret secret.’
That got Crys’s attention and his hand closed tighter on Ash’s.
‘We are losing this war. Do you hear me? We are losing. And whatever it is you do to inspire the soldiers under your command, we need you to do it. We’ve all seen their fanaticism around you – I’ve felt it myself, to be honest – and we need it. There’s talk of surrender. What do you think will happen to the patients in the hospitals if that happens? The Mireces’ll slaughter them. Meaning this man will die. If you want to stop that happening, you have got to get your arse on the wall.’
‘We’re losing?’ The voice was little more than a croak, but it was his.
Crys spun to Ash’s cot so fast he over-balanced. ‘Ash? Ash, thank the gods. Hallos! Hallos, he’s awake.’
Ash was as grey as his name, but he was breathing and talking and alive. His eyes were wells of confusion and Renik’s words were lost in them, as Crys was lost in them. He brought Ash’s hand up to his lips, kissed it and then pressed it to his cheek. ‘You came back,’ he whispered.
Ash managed a smile and a frown at the same time. ‘I went somewhere?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Crys said as Hallos moved Renik aside. He edged Crys away, too, and the majors gave him space to check Ash’s pulse, pupils and reactions, moving briskly but gently.
‘There you go,’ Renik said quietly. ‘He lives and is awake. Your time in this hospital is done.’
‘Give me a minute with him, Renik, please,’ Crys said without looking at him. ‘Please. I’ll do anything you want after that, but … please.’
Renik was silent for a while. ‘Never pegged you as one,’ he said eventually. ‘Crooked.’
It didn’t sting the way he’d thought it would. ‘Nor did I,’ he said instead of taking offence, ‘but I guess none of us can help who we fall in love with. That’s why it’s called falling.’
‘And the other rumour? About you bringing him back from the dead?’
Crys shrugged. ‘Horseshit,’ he said. ‘Didn’t work on Durdil, did it? Battle fatigue, clouds men’s minds.’
Renik wasn’t convinced and Crys moved hurriedly to Ash when Hallos called him.
He brushed Ash’s hair back from his face. The Wolf was sitting up, legs dangling over the edge of the cot, swaying like a reed in the breeze, but upright at least. ‘Exhaustion and concussion, no injuries,’ Hallos said, peering at Crys with the same expression as Renik. ‘A good meal and I can discharge him.’
The words were distant. ‘What do you remember?’ Crys asked, because Ash was shaking his head in denial.
‘That’s not right. I was going to make my way to the south wall, was taking the long route to stretch my legs, and I met a … Personal. We were walking together and … we fought, I can’t remember why.’ His face drained of blood so fast that Hallos put a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘And he killed me.’
Crys’s heart was thudding and Ash’s words were a bucket of cold water in the face of his denial. What he’d said to Renik, what he was telling himself, was a lie. Something inside him slithered against his skin, powerful, alien, an unsubtle reminder of its presence. He shuddered and put a hand on Ash’s bare back, comforting them both with the contact.
Hallos was stroking his beard. ‘Nonsense. You were knocked unconscious and covered in your enemy’s blood. You, Major, panicked, thinking he was dead. When he woke, your exhausted witnesses assumed you’d brought him back to life. Which is clearly ridiculous. You couldn’t bring Durdil back, therefore you didn’t bring Ash back.’ He sounded as if he was lecturing apprentice healers. He sounded as if he was trying to convince them all.
‘You’re just confused, man,’ he said to Ash, not unkindly.
‘It was Galtas who killed me,’ Ash gasped. ‘Galtas was in the city and I recognised him from your descriptions. I hurt him, cleaved his knee before he … before he …’ Ash’s hand came up to the thick purple scar. ‘He took my face off.’
His eyes filled with tears. ‘I remember it happening. I remember what it felt like. He stabbed me in the back and the pain … and then he ripped my face off.’ He paused to pant, Hallos’s fingers on his pulse even as he muttered protestations.
‘I was gone, Crys. I was dead. I was in the Light. And then you—’ Ash broke off, choking, and Crys’s heart broke a little as he shifted away from him, not so much fear as bone-deep confusion. ‘How did you …’
Crys wanted to hush him, but the thing inside stretched again, filling his limbs and tongue with tingling until he couldn’t speak, couldn’t deny it.
‘You brought me back,’ Ash whispered. Hallos bent close, Renik pressed against Crys’s back to better see the archer. ‘I felt you in the Light. You came and got me. Didn’t you?’ Crys nodded, a convulsive jerk of the head. ‘Then you are, you must be … Him.’
‘I don’t know,’ Crys whispered.
‘You’re Him.’ Crys even heard the capital letter adorning the pronoun. ‘You’re the Fox God.’
There was a moment of stunned silence. ‘That’s what the men are saying, too,’ Renik breathed. ‘But how?’
‘Splitsoul,’ Ash whispered, as though he couldn’t stop himself. ‘Trickster.’
‘Godlight,’ Crys added for him and Ash’s hands closed convulsively on his.
‘That’s right. That’s what Dom called you, didn’t he, after his knowing? God’s eyes, godlight, something like that.’
‘I think we all need to calm down,’ Hallos said, sounding shaken. ‘I am a man of science, and—’
‘Then explain to me how I’m alive?’ Ash demanded, gesturing to the new scars on his face, back and chest. Hallos closed his mouth. He couldn’t.
Why me? Crys screamed at the thing moving through him.
Why not? it replied. It must be someone.
Are you … Him?
He felt it smile. No. We are Him. Split. One part human, one part … other. Together, we have such things to do. Such things.
What do I call you? he asked, feeling stupid, aware that Ash and Hallos were watching him.
We are not separate, Crys. I am you and you are me. We must still be tempered, but even now we are one. No longer a splitsoul, but a single being, each bringing different strengths, different perspectives, to what is to come.
‘Will I survive it?’ Crys asked aloud.
That is not a question we should ask ourselves. It serves no purpose. Live well, fight hard, love harder. That is all any of us can do.
‘Will you survive what?’ Ash asked. ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘Sweet Dancer, Major. Your eyes are glowing,’ Hallos said. He gripped Crys’s arm. ‘Let me just get a lantern, I’d like to examine—’
‘Hallos. Feed him, water him, keep an eye on him. I need to get to the breach.’ Crys ignored Ash’s protests and Renik’s reminder he should be on the southern wall. He leant in and kissed Ash’s lips, unmindful of witnesses. ‘Don’t be scared of me, love. Please. I don’t understand what’s happening, but you’re the only anchor I have in this world.’
Ash cupped his chin and smiled, wan and worried. ‘I could never fear you,’ he whispered. ‘Heart-bound.’
Crys felt a loosening in his chest, and a corresponding movement as something else slid into the space. ‘You remembered.’
‘Always. Fox God.’
It looked like the Afterworld, the hell that was the Red Gods’ paradise. Lit only by intermittent moonlight and the orange rags and flickers of torches, shadows leaping like animals at men, men struggling like drunks with each other, the breach was horror made flesh.
Crys felt like he’d left his heart in the hospital and his sanity somewhere else. The questions in his head were too big to even contemplate answering, and the … voice, which spoke with his voice, had fallen silent. Silent, but not still. He could feel it
again, stretching and moving inside him, like a fish under a skin of water, pressing upwards but not quite breaking the surface.
Was it really what it said it was? How was it even possible? Crys’s religious history was hazy, but even he’d heard tales of the Trickster wearing a mortal’s flesh. The thought pulled him up short, wobbling in the darkness, his temples throbbing. Do I even exist? Am I just a cloak, a disguise for Him? Who am I?
It didn’t answer.
Men had cleared a path through the rubble so that troops could move along the base of First Circle’s wall, and someone had tried laying planks over the debris to aid the ascent, but it had little effect. The only way to the top was by scrambling and hoping you didn’t break a leg. So Crys scrambled, his breath whistling in his throat, his limbs tingling with the same energy he’d felt when he first saw Ash dead in the doorway.
The top of the collapse, where the rubble had settled into something almost level, was a seething, writhing mass of men, fighting with swords, knives, axes and fists. Knees and elbows, feet and teeth. Blood splatted and pattered, sweat slid, men cursed and shrieked, stumbled and fell, snapped ankles and tore knees on the uneven ground. And fought. Endlessly fought through the stink of smashed stone and shit, smoke and rot.
He saw clearly despite the dim and flickering light, picking out blue shirts and even East Rank insignia, mixed together for this all-out assault. Mace was in the thick of it close to the slump of Second Tower, Dorcas and Vaunt flanking him, so Crys picked his way north towards the remains of Last Bastion, letting the oh-so-familiar movements of battle preparation distract him from the roiling inside his head and body. The thing was a cool and reassuring presence, but it did nothing to convince him he’d live through the night.
He spotted an abandoned spear and sheathed his sword in preference for it, more than happy to stab advancing Mireces before they could get close enough to stab him. Soon enough a knot of Palace Rankers formed around him, the beginnings of a ragged line, peppered with gaps where the terrain was too unstable to find a decent footing.
‘All right, this is how it goes,’ Crys said, relaxing into command and pushing all else away. ‘Those with spears at the fore. Those with anything else, find a gap in the line and stand behind it – if any get through, it’ll be there. They pass our line, they’re yours to kill. Make sure you do. Last thing we want is to be surrounded.’
‘There’s thousands of them, sir,’ a lad squeaked, his spear tip wobbling about all over the place.
‘But he’s the Fox God,’ a voice from further down, shrouded in darkness, said.
Crys ignored them both. ‘Listen up. We’re going to hold this breach and hold it all night. There’s enough of us because there has to be, it’s as simple as that. We’re going to kill five of them for every one of us who goes to the Light, and when dawn breaks we’re going to be standing behind a second wall, this one built of heathens’ corpses. It’s going to be so high the enemy won’t be able to reach us over its own dead.’
He grinned and the boy looked more scared of him than the Mireces. Scared and awed. ‘And do you know what else we’re going to do?’ The boy shook his head and a few others did too, so Crys raised his voice. ‘We’re going to provide cover so that people behind us can start piling rock in such a way we have another wall of sorts, and we’re going to lay planks behind it to stand on, and we’re going to get a stinger in the ruins of Last Bastion to work in tandem with the catapult in Second Tower and keep their fucking heads down. Because this is how we beat them.’
‘But we’ll be on the wrong side of the wall, sir!’
Crys winked. ‘Not for long,’ he promised. ‘We hold until it’s built, and then we hop over it and have a nice rest while reinforcements do some fighting. How’s that sound?’
‘Good, sir!’ the boy said, his teeth showing with sudden hope.
The thing inside stirred.
‘Arrows,’ Crys shouted and grabbed the shield leaning against his leg and flung it overhead. The other spearmen did likewise, but the boy was still staring at Crys with worshipful eyes and an arrow took him in the throat and tumbled him down the rubble in a tangle of arms and legs. Poor bastard.
‘Learn from that,’ Crys shouted when Second Tower sent a return flight of arrows into the night. ‘Watch the enemy, not me. We’re silhouetted up here by our own torches, so be aware for the hum of arrows heading your way. All right, here they come.’
The Mireces charged in the wake of the volley, hoping to find most of the defenders wounded or dead. They splashed against Crys’s line, which held and then forced them back. One slipped by Crys’s spear while he engaged a second and lunged past him. Crys let him go, hoping the men behind would do as he’d ordered. He didn’t get stabbed, so he guessed they had.
The line to his left started to buckle. ‘Hold,’ he roared, ‘Hold the high ground or we die.’ Still they dropped back a step, so Crys turned to the men either side of him. ‘Hold this position.’ Apparently they saw something in his face or his eyes, because they nodded hurriedly and straightened, stepping in slightly to cover the gap made by his departure, waiting for the next attack.
Crys faded out of the line and moved between it and the second row armed with close-quarter weapons. They nodded or saluted and he nodded back, picking his way through the rubble as fast as he dared to the other end of the line. It was slipping because it was loose, the last man with no cover to his left to anchor him, just yawning darkness where Mireces could slip around his side and come at him from all angles. He was doing his best, but he was looking for support that wasn’t there. Crys slid into place.
‘All right? Major Tailorson here to lend a hand. You are?’
‘Brock,’ the man said, his relief tangible. ‘Are you Him?’
‘I’m Crys. Listen, Brock, we’re going to stiffen this line, because we’re a few steps behind now and that’s not good for anyone. Come on, push forward.’ Together, they fought back into the line and then Crys put his back to Brock and faced outward. ‘I can’t see you, soldier,’ he called back, ‘so don’t you fucking leave me, all right? Hold your position.’
‘Holding, sir,’ Brock said, his tone steadier now. Crys knew if the man fell or fucked up, his back would be exposed to attack, but Brock needed an anchor for the line and so Crys was it. The thing inside rumbled its approval and its certainty that he wouldn’t die here tonight, and that was enough for him. Betting my life on the shadow inside me. What could possibly go wrong?
In the seconds between the short, vicious battles he fought, he called for reports on the line and each one confirmed it was holding. The Mireces had slowed their attack, pausing at the bottom of the hill to reassess.
‘They’ll be up with spears next,’ Crys shouted as he turned back into the line. ‘They know they can’t pass us with short weapons, so you’ll be fencing away with polearms soon enough. Stay tight, wound if you can’t kill, give them openings through to the second line of defence if you must.’
‘But we haven’t got spears,’ one of those in the second rank shouted back.
‘Then it’s a good job you won’t be facing as many attackers as we are,’ Crys said and got a laugh and a round of boos from the front rank. ‘Arrows,’ he bellowed, though he hadn’t heard anything this time, just knew, and those that still had shields readied them while the rest, Crys included, crouched low and hoped. Long seconds, and then impact. Screams, one vile expletive Crys decided to memorise for future use, and then a stream of jeers directed down the slope.
Crys stood and squinted along the breach. ‘Vaunt! Major Vaunt!’ He waved. ‘Form up, will you, we could use some support this end.’
He watched as Vaunt picked his way towards him, eyes wide as he strained to see. ‘Tailorson?’
‘That’s me, now where’s my back-up?’ Crys asked. Vaunt was in a half-crouch and Crys bent forward. ‘You wounded or have you just done your back in?’
‘Arrows,’ Vaunt hissed.
Crys straightened. ‘
You can hear them coming,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. Look, we need to complete a line here, stand firm and not let them past us. We throw a bunch of lit torches down there and they won’t be able to see us, but we’ll see them.’
‘Anyone can see your bloody eyes glowing,’ Vaunt muttered as he straightened with an air of extreme reluctance. ‘Bloody off-putting.’
‘My eyes are no one’s concern but mine. Look, we form a line here and hold them off, get men behind us shifting this rubble and building fortifications. Fuck it, get civilians doing it, it’s about time they helped out.’ He gripped Vaunt’s arm. ‘A wall on top of the breach. Anything to slow them down, Major, but no one can start work if we haven’t got a line to hold. There’s a hundred strides between me and Mace and I’ve seen men slipping through that gap. There’s Mireces in the city, Vaunt. We have to form a line.’
‘I’ve got a Hundred down there picking them off,’ Vaunt said, waving a hand.
‘Oh. Good. Let’s hope they don’t send more than that then, eh?’ Vaunt’s lip curled but he had no response. ‘Come on, man, help me out here,’ Crys said, ‘I’m going to be dead soon if you don’t. We’ve got a fragile line, but this lot are close to shitting their linens. It’d mean a lot if they had some support from their mates. Their commanding officers.’
Vaunt groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘All right, fine. You know this is mostly suicide, don’t you?’
Crys shrugged and smiled. ‘We all die sometime. Let it be for something good, eh?’
‘Doesn’t look like I’ve got a choice, does it?’ Vaunt said, but then he brightened. ‘Maybe they’ll write songs about us once we’re dead.’
‘I’d prefer it if they wrote songs we were alive to hear, but whatever gets you standing at my side, Major, I’ll count as a win.’ He cocked his head. ‘Arrows,’ he yelled. This time his men didn’t hesitate, though Vaunt did.
‘I don’t—’
Crys dragged him on to the shattered stone. Seconds later they heard the splintering impact of arrows breaking all around them, Vaunt yelping as one ricocheted and laid open his right arse cheek. ‘Fuck the fucking gods, that hurts,’ he bellowed when Crys let him up.
Darksoul Page 21