by Stephen Hunt
A bullet twanged off a wall, spraying brick fragments over his shoulder. Duncan thought he saw movement from a roof ahead and sprayed a volley from his rifle, the rifle butt slamming painfully against his shoulder. He hadn’t sighted, and beyond taking chunks out of roof masonry, he suspected he’d just expended four bullets for nothing. It’s like fighting an invisible enemy. So how come they still seem able to see me?
Paetro slipped beside Duncan. ‘This doesn’t seem right, lad.’
‘Nobody standing up to take a shot in the clear? While magically still being able to take pot-shots at me. Never did seem right.’
‘Welcome to street fighting,’ said Paetro. ‘No, this village. It’s as if they’re not fighting to hold it.’
Duncan glanced nervously around, checking each shuttered window slit for a rifle barrel jutting out. ‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Concentrate on slowing your breath. It’ll clear your mind and steady your aim.’ Paetro glanced around the corner, finding nothing that seemed to please him. ‘We’ll keep on skirting the village. Head for the slope back there. I want to see how well defended their wind-harbour is.’ Paetro turned back to the men running low behind him and flashed them a series of directions using the legion’s sign language.
They passed rapidly through Ganyid Thang’s fringes, attracting the occasional shot from the mountains or the village. Paetro appeared to treat the fire with contempt. As if nothing could hurt him. Duncan wondered how much of that was an old soldier’s act. I wonder how long I’d need to serve with the house before I could pull it off as deftly.
Ganyid Thang’s wind-harbour was much the same as the others Duncan had visited. A tunnel mouth carved into the mountain slopes, perhaps fifty feet across and twenty high. It might have been a stone works save for the fact that the walls inside had been brick-sealed and the gargoyle-like faces of a host of wind spirits leered down from around the entrance. A pistol shot barked in their direction and Duncan caught sight of a shadowy form pulling back into the cover of the wind-harbour.
‘Stay back,’ ordered Paetro. Duncan saw the old soldier had the wooden handle of a grenade grasped in his hand; the ugly spiked metal can on top packed with powder and shrapnel barbs. He yanked the pin out of the bottom of the grenade’s wooden grip and then sent it spinning towards the entrance. A thunderous explosion followed, a shower of hot rock fragments and metal before its echoes faded angrily within the entrance tunnel. There was no more sign of opposition from inside. But there was something else. The grenade’s blast had blown away dirt and wiry grass from in front of the windharbour, leaving uncovered what had been shallowly buried. Duncan pointed out the freshly disturbed soil to the side of the cavern . . . a half-exposed twine fuse. ‘That’s why they left a lightly defended path through the centre of the village.’
‘What kind of war is it when the barbarians try to bury you under their own rocks?’ complained Paetro.
‘If the Rodalians deprive us of all the wind-harbours from here to Hadra-Hareer, they’ll slow our advance; make us vulnerable to Rodal’s storms.’
‘It’s a ruthless commander who burns his own grain stores to stop his enemies eating them.’
Duncan knew exactly who Paetro meant. Jacob Carnehan again, curse the man. ‘I’ll find the master fuse and cut it.’
‘Be careful,’ said Paetro. ‘I wager they’ve mined more than the wind-harbour. The last settlement Mad Machus took, the baron circled his tanks around the wind-harbour and fed it shells until the townspeople sheltering inside surrendered.’ Paetro pointed to the heights behind the wind-harbour. ‘What do you think the barbarians are hoping he repeats the tactic?’
‘A landslide, as well?’
‘Aye. When the barbarians realize their plan to crush us inside their wind-harbour has failed, they’ll boil down from those slopes, lad.’
‘If they’ve got the numbers,’ said Duncan. ‘Maybe entombing the legion was all of their plan?’
‘We’ll find out the hard way, I reckon.’
Duncan sprinted from the cover of the street to the entrance, Paetro sending a volley up into the slopes above, but, as rapidly as Duncan dashed, he didn’t hear any answering fire. Yes, they want us to fight our way inside there.
Duncan drew to a halt inside the entrance. The Rodalian who had shot at him lay still and silent twenty feet down the tunnel on his front, killed outright by the grenade’s explosion. Every wind-harbour seized before had cost a considerable butcher’s bill paid in Vandian and royalist blood. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting as the tunnels and chambers inside were cleared of defenders. Many wind-harbours possessed secret access passages, tunnels and chimneys to carry down air or light by mirrors. Labyrinths where Vandians and King Marcus’ soldiers could crawl in by the squad and never be seen again. This chamber, Duncan suspected, would prove empty. Or have they left more of a suicide detail than a single soldier to put up token resistance and draw us inside? Duncan carefully explored the wind-harbour’s opening. Up ahead was the first of many twists and turns to break the storm’s force. So where would I set a master fuse? He discovered a sentry alcove in the wall, where a guard could keep out of the worst of a storm while staying on post to help stragglers and new arrivals pass inside. Its stone cavity was lined with wood, and some of the planks looked like they had recently been removed and replaced. Duncan slipped a steel dagger out of his belt and levered at the timber until it broke. Behind the facade lay a space newly carved inside the rock-face. It contained a tiny wooden drum not much bigger than a biscuit tin. The canister sat connected to a nest of oil-soaked twine fuses and Duncan well recognized the container from years in the local territorial guard. Fuse paste packed into the casket, an incendiary core burning down the middle. The lid was painted red, the colour indicating the time taken to burn out and ignite. Duncan ripped the fuse lines from the drum and tossed the now useless device out into the tunnel. Then he checked the sentry post opposite, finding the alcove empty of further surprises. The Rodalians’ turn for a shock. When the charges they’ve set in this place fail to explode.
As Duncan returned to Paetro’s position he found Kenem Posda had caught up with them, ‘It’s done. They’d left a fuse drum burning inside. I’ve ripped it out.’
‘Bad day for them,’ said Paetro. ‘They’re not going to bury us or the baron’s tanks today.’
‘So, that’s why they’re so light on swords in the village,’ said Kenem. ‘Sneaky buggers.’
‘They might still bring down a landslide on us,’ said Duncan. ‘Out of spite. The detonator for that will be up there in their hands.’
‘Pull back to the village’s western edge. That should be clear enough of rockfalls if it comes to it. We’ll make our stand there. See how far the barbarians’ taste for destroying their own property stretches today.’
‘What about our orders . . . pressing our claim?’ said Kenem.
‘That’s how I’m choosing to do it,’ said Paetro. ‘If the baron wants to complain, he can drive into the village on his big shiny steel bombard to do it in person. Maybe I’ll forget to mention my suspicions about how many powder barrels they have hidden up on the peaks.’
‘Now you sound like Charia,’ said Duncan.
‘She was right about one thing. There’s a difference between rolling a grenade inside an idiot’s tent and finding a barbarian’s done the job for you.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘On a good day, a firing squad,’ said Paetro.
They fell back to the low, single-storey buildings in the far corner of the village, legionaries retreating with them as they ran. Paetro’s troops seized a block of four connected buildings on the edge of Ganyid Thang; a high, stone-walled structure with a series of low stone dry-pools to remove moisture from rice. This was a farm, large enough to support three families tending the valley’s fields. There was a clear sweep of fire into the pass on two sides, easily reinforced by legionaries coming down from the opposite slope. And now the narrow s
huttered windows would be working for the Vandians as they defended it. No sign of the farmers who lived here, though. Someone had taken the trouble to evacuate the locals before the attack. And not inside the wind-harbour, where the populace usually fled.
They remained hunkered down inside for half an hour, exchanging the occasional shot with Rodalian marksmen from nearby rooftops, as well as chasing off enemy warriors easing around adjacent buildings. From up on the roof Duncan heard a shouted warning not to shoot, and a minute later Carbo appeared, his face crimson and dirt-streaked from his sprint across the valley.
‘What is it, then?’ barked Paetro.
‘Mountain soldiers, maybe seven hundred of them, moving down the east slope in three companies.’
‘No doubt vexed we’ve tickled their trap and have yet to set it off.’
‘Charia and her long-gunsmen are asking to come across and make nests inside the village.’
‘You run back and order Charia to keep shifting position across the west slope, pick off the barbarians. Then you find whichever cave the radioman’s hiding in and inform our illustrious leader that the enemy are attempting to set off a landslide above the wind-harbour and bury the legion’s armoured brigade. My recommendation is that the baron swings around the village, holds well outside while he mounts a heavy bombardment against the rice-eaters.’
‘Will he heed that?’ asked Duncan.
‘Who knows?’ said Paetro. ‘I’m just the tip of the spear.’ He turned to the legionaries kneeling behind window slits around the room. ‘And what does a spear do?’
‘Impale!’ came the shout.
‘And after I’ve passed word to the baron?’ asked Carbo.
‘Stay with Charia,’ said Paetro. ‘And observe. When you get back to the house in Vandia, tell them how we fought here.’
‘Permission to return.’
‘No, lad. A runner passes the word. That’s your job. You just make sure you tell them.’
‘And what do I tell Charia about this?’
‘Tell her she’s about to be promoted.’
Duncan watched the young runner slip reluctantly away from the building. ‘You don’t think Baron Machus is going to ride to the rescue today?’
‘I’d say the baron has his orders, wouldn’t you?’
Duncan felt the bitter anger rise at Prince Gyal’s scheming. ‘Leave me here, then, damn you. I’ll draw fire and cover everyone else’s retreat back to the cave.’
‘We’re all damned, Duncan of Weyland. Damned, the moment we left our nations to accept the legion’s coin. Didn’t know enough of anything else worth a damn but to sign up with the house when we finished our twenty years.’
‘Kenem,’ Duncan pressed. ‘You know why we’re really here. Talk some sense into this thick-headed bull.’
Kenem Posda patted the thick farm walls. ‘Too many years on me to go haring hither and thither. Too many hard fights behind me to have any savage with a taste for rice saying I finally turned tail from one. This place will do.’
‘Yes,’ said Paetro. ‘This place will do.’
‘There are fifty of us and seven hundred of them! We won’t last an hour.’
Paetro called to the soldiers. ‘One hour of fighting or eternity without a name? If anyone here doesn’t want to make that trade, then you have my permission to join the marksmen in the high slopes.’
Hoots of derision echoed around the farm. Not a soldier moved away from the window slits. ‘We’re not here for Machus or Gyal,’ said Paetro. ‘Perhaps not even for Princess Helrena. We never were. You understand?’
At last, Duncan thought he did. We’re here for each other.
And that was when the furious screams from hundreds of Rodalians charging down the slope broke across the farm.
Cassandra hobbled out into the sunlight, her legs awakening beneath her, stiff and leaden. She knew she just had time enough to head out for the stream, reach it to wash her feet, then return to the tent before Temmell’s healing spell dissipated. The yellow sun had begun its journey in the east. She could hear the song of buttonquails running around the long grass on the stream’s far, sandy-soiled bank. Following the sound of birds, she arrived. Nobody else was here. Those who had drawn water for a tent’s first meal had already done so. Washing of clothes would happen later when the rays of the hot sun would steam garments dry quickly and efficiently. She removed her boots and dipped her bare feet in the stream, enjoying the feel of the chill water running across her toes. As Cassandra sat she heard a cry rise in the camp. She stood to look. Somebody was riding in on a horse from the direction of Temmell’s makeshift air-works, children running after the horse and cheering. Then she saw who it was. Zald Mirok. The old nomad who had left with Alexamir to fly into Rodal on the raid. He’s alone! Her heart sank. For the love of the ancestors, where’s Alexamir? Two had flown out and only one had flown back? She jumped up, pulling her boots back on without even drying her feet, almost tripping as she sprinted back, dodging tents inside the camp. When Cassandra reached where Mirok had been riding, she couldn’t see the warrior or hear the children yelling. He’s dismounted. Where—?
She passed through the camp, trying to locate the pilot again, but without luck. She would need to return to the tent soon, or risk falling out here, hamstrung. As Cassandra desperately cast her eyes about a voice sounded behind her. A voice she had prayed a thousand times to hear again.
‘Have you no greeting for me?’
She whirled about. Alexamir! Cassandra opened her mouth but could only manage a surprised croak. She ran to him and tried again. ‘Thank the ancestors, you’re alive!’
‘Why thank them?’ laughed Alexamir. He picked her up and whirled her through the air, putting her down again and leaving her dizzy. ‘Thank instead my gods for making Alexamir Arinnbold the greatest of all thieves. Rodal’s dark buried city tried to make a corpse of me, but their guards and their traps were no match for my cunning.’
‘You’ve copied the book.’
‘I stole its contents and I took a few other prizes, besides,’ said Alexamir.
Something is wrong, though. I can hear it in his words. ‘What prizes would they be, to trouble your victory?’
‘Atamva sent me a mercenary who once fought in the Burn. An ally to help me break into the city and steal away from it, too. He gave me the gift of the truth.’
Why does he scowl so? ‘It was not a happy truth?’
‘A blood truth for a blood feud,’ said Alexamir.
Is this why he’s come back, to fight before he has a chance to live? ‘Tell me!’
‘Later,’ said Alexamir. ‘The thought of you kept me warm sleeping on cold grass, it kept me cool in the scalding air sitting behind Zald Mirok in his shaking wooden pigeon.’
‘And now you have me, not just the memory of me.’ Cassandra suddenly stopped. ‘My legs. I haven’t fallen to the ground yet!’
‘You are healed,’ said Alexamir.
Cassandra had to think twice on what Alexamir had just said. ‘But Temmell hasn’t laid hands on me.’
‘He has what he wants,’ said Alexamir. ‘Temmell was the first person to greet us after we landed. He’s already picked the memories of his holy book out of my mind like a hungry goatherd spearing river eels from a stream.’
‘But how am I whole again?’ Can we trust Temmell? What if my healing is temporary and he comes with a second suicide mission for Alexamir?
‘Temmell laughed when I demanded my price,’ explained Alexamir. ‘He said that the trick wasn’t in healing you, but in stopping his cure from taking hold permanently. That is why he had you carried to his sorcerer’s den so frequently. Not to renew the healing, but keep his enchantment from healing you for good.’
Cassandra felt a quick flash of anger. ‘You mean I could have left the camp and if I had stayed out of Temmell’s clutches, my legs would have been restored to me?’
Alexamir nodded. ‘All sorcerers are tricksters. Temmell has what he wants. I have what
I want. But what of you, my Golden Fox? Do you have what you want?’
She hugged him tight. ‘I do.’
‘Temmell told me about the camp’s uninvited visitors. Your mother and her soldiers . . . what they did to you.’
‘They did nothing to me,’ said Cassandra. Now she knew Alexamir had survived she could say the words and mean them. ‘Nothing but give me the gift of my freedom.’
‘Your broken spine is cured now. If you went back to them you would have your birthright, would you not?’
‘Yes,’ said Cassandra. ‘I would have it all given back to me. And I would be a prisoner to the name I was born with, the imperial blood that flows through my veins.’
‘I will keep my word if you wish it. Return you to your empire.’
‘That is not a word I wish to hear.’
‘Well then,’ beamed Alexamir. ‘Temmell has his stolen rice-eater spells, but I have stolen something far more precious which the sly wizard will never have.’
‘It’s not stolen when it’s offered to you,’ said Cassandra.
‘See how it is,’ joked Alexamir, ‘you have not even had your hand stained dark by a witch’s marriage-henna and already you seek to curtail my amusement.’