The walls were filled with soldiers and artillery, auxiliary archers and those stalwart citizens who had answered the final call to arms and taken up bows, slings, spears and even handfuls of rocks to hurl down on the enemy. Here and there below on the ground, officers directed the milling public. It looked like chaos, but Kiva knew just how well organized it truly was, for he had planned the evacuation himself.
Turning, he looked down at his city and bit back a cry of dismay. Already the enemy had reached the Imperial Way. A last unit of a dozen soldiers fleeing for the safety of the palace were swiftly overrun by nomads and barbarians alike, their screams lost in the general din. Columns of smoke arose here and there where the more vicious and shortsighted invaders fired buildings, but even then those fires were being gradually extinguished by other men – those directed by the Khan or Aldegund, clearly – in order to make sure that the end of the day would see them victoriously occupying a city and not just a pile of ash.
‘They’re nearly here, Quint.’
‘Don’t worry, Majesty, we’ll hold them outside the palace until nightfall. They can’t bring artillery to bear and we can push back siege ladders. The only way they’ll get in at the end is when they break down a gate. It’ll take them hours to get a ram up here and in position, and more than an hour to break through a gate. And even now, all the palace gates are being blocked from inside, buying us more time. We’re not done for yet. With the gods’ favour we’ll see another dawn in Velutio, even if we have to do it from a ship.’
The marshal straightened.
‘Which leads me to my next order. It’s time you went, Kiva.’
‘What?’
‘No matter how long we hold the palace, the emperor needs to be safe. And the only way I can run a solid defence here is in the secure knowledge that you’re out of danger.’
‘Quintillian, I’m not leaving you here to die on the walls.’
His brother gave him a wan smile. ‘Now, Kiva, you know as well as I that someone in authority has to stay and maintain the last defence. It has to be a marshal, really, and I’m the only one in the city. And we both know that there’s an unspoken trouble between us, too. This is a solution to that, if not an elegant one.’
Kiva stared at his brother, and Quintillian shrugged with an odd smile. ‘We’ve never spoken about it since I returned, but we both know what I’m talking about. And when she comes back, the empire will be whole again, even if it has to be an empire in exile.’
‘No, Quint.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Kiva. You know that even if we win the day and save Velutio, there is no viable future with all three of us living under the same palace roof. What do you think drove me from the city all those months ago? What drove Jala back to Pelasia? It’s a neat little solution, and it suits me. I’ve no family to leave other than you, and whether we win or lose, I’ll go down in the histories as the last man in Velutio.’ He chuckled. ‘If you want to make it better, deify me afterwards.’
Kiva simply stared. ‘I’ve not bloodied this in the defence of my own realm,’ he said, tapping the hilt of the sword at his side.
Quintillian shrugged. ‘One of us is the fighter, one is the thinker. It’s always been that way.’
‘It has,’ Kiva admitted, drawing the blade and examining his distorted reflection in the cold steel.
‘Careful with that. I don’t want gutting before I can do my job.’ Quintillian laughed hollowly, and turned as an officer shouted something about ladders.
Kiva struck fast. He was no trained warrior and had precious little experience of the fight, but he had experienced the same endless hours of boyhood training as Quintillian and, for all his lack of practice, he knew what the blunt end was for just as well as the pointed one.
The round wooden pommel with the bronze rivet smacked into the side of Quintillian’s head with a sickening noise and for a moment Kiva panicked that he had killed his brother. But as the officers and men atop the gate rushed over to the fallen prince-marshal, Kiva knelt and checked. Quintillian was breathing. His pulse was steady. He was unconscious.
‘Take the prince to the harbour. I want him bound for Isera on the very next ship. I want a guard of four men on him and his sword and dagger are to be removed. If he wakes and tries to leave the island, restrain him any way you can. Prince Quintillian stays on Isera until this is over one way or another.’
The guard officer gave him an uncertain look. ‘Majesty, we have set orders from the marshal.’
‘Who I outrank, if you remember. You are being given an imperial command from the lips of the emperor himself. In our final hours will you deny me, Prefect?’
The officer snapped to attention and saluted. ‘Of course not, sire.’
‘Good. Now take him.’
The emperor straightened as the guards gently lifted Quintillian’s limp form from the stone flags and made for the staircase. Kiva watched with an odd feeling of relief. For a decade he had been groomed for power and then reigned as emperor of the greatest nation the world had ever known. And yet, despite the fact that his brother had always accepted their relative positions with comfort, Kiva had known that for all his organizational skills, the empire would have been stronger under Quintillian. And Jala had been a good empress and the perfect consort, but while Kiva loved her unconditionally, it was now clear to him that she had always loved Quintillian.
True, someone in authority had to lead the last defence of Velutio. But Quintillian had been wrong about one thing. It didn’t have to be a marshal. And Kiva would, in the end, be the one to go down in the stories.
He smiled. It really was an unexpected relief. He gripped the sword still and examined his face in the blade. No longer the face of an emperor, now the face of a general. He rolled his shoulders, lowered the sword and strode over to where a prefect was tapping a set of plans of the palace and giving out orders to captains.
‘Am I to understand that my brother has already organized the defence of the palace with you and the other officers?’
The prefect turned and saluted. ‘That he did, Majesty.’
‘Tell me everything. And do it quick. The enemy are at the gates.’
Overhead, unheeding of the troubles of the earth, the sun reached its zenith and shone down on an emperor organizing the last day of his life.
Chapter XXIX
Of the Fall of Empires
Kiva heaved in a breath, trying to prevent his knees from trembling. He’d not the heart to shout at the prefects and captains defending the palace, but it had irritated him more and more as the afternoon wore on that no imperial soldier would let the emperor into a situation where he might bloody his blade. He’d gone along with it, for the morale boost his mere presence gave the men was clear, but despite that, they needed every sword they could get.
There had been 1200 and some men on the walls of the palace when the Khan’s army began to move up the Imperial Way. A number that was lost and insignificant against the enormous army the enemy fielded, but enough to hold for some time.
And yet they had to hold longer. The sun was sliding down the sky to the west, closing on the horizon across the Nymphaean Sea, and if people had followed Kiva’s evacuation plans to the letter and the Lady of Fortune had been watching over them throughout, the last civilians should have been shipped away by now. But periodic reports brought to the emperor by sour-faced runners told increasingly unpleasant tales. One captain had lost a steering oar and his ship had foundered on the rocks. There were no details yet as to the casualties, but the awful truth was that no matter how many survived at the moment, clinging to the dreadful rocks in the last rays of the sun, the morning would see no survivors, for there could be no rescue mounted and the survivors would drown or starve. Then another of the four ships had suffered some kind of calamity and though it remained intact, it also remained docked on Isera. And so the evacuation had slowed to half the pace. The increasing panic among the remaining trapped refugees had led to numerous outbreaks of
violence. Men, women and children had been injured and killed in surges as the mob tried to flood the ships. The forces down there in the harbour were struggling to maintain control and despite their own peril, Kiva had sent 20 more men to the ships to reimpose order.
So now, with the last of the day fading behind him, Kiva was faced with an impossible task. There were still over 1000 people – probably twice that – at the harbour, waiting for the next of the ships, which were now sailing only once every half hour. That meant they needed anywhere between five and ten hours to evacuate everyone.
They had held the palace walls and gates for eight hours against the most incredible odds, purely because the enemy were unable to find an easy way to get to them. They had been secure. And then, an hour ago, one of the lesser palace gates had fallen. It had not been unexpected, and in the preceding quarter of an hour the palace grounds had been secured, but it was a step closer to the end, and a huge one at that. The remaining civilians were now all down in the harbour and the door to the harbour stairway was very secure, so they at least were safe for now. But the palace grounds were as full of the enemy as the city outside. Over the afternoon the four stairways up to the wall walks had been demolished and all the doors leading from the grounds into the critical buildings sealed from the inside and blocked. The defenders were trapped on the walls above, and the attackers in the grounds below, but something would change very soon. The archers atop the palace had run out of arrows mid-afternoon, and even the civilian volunteers had run out of rocks to cast and were now throwing down roof tiles and the like. The Khan’s men, on the other hand, were still well-supplied, and arrows from the excellent bows of the nomads repeatedly clattered against the battlements above. The wall height and the angles made the soldiers hard to target, but the enemy were good and so numerous that inevitably the defenders were being whittled away. Kiva could rarely count to 100 without hearing a scream somewhere atop the walls.
‘Prefect, how are we doing?’
The officer, a drawn, serious face jammed between a dented helmet and a sweaty tunic, coughed. ‘Last count we had three hundred and twenty-five, of which more than thirty were civilian levies. But there have been a number of casualties since then, Majesty.’
‘And the situation.’
‘Dire, Majesty. They’ve broken into the guardhouse, the servants’ quarters and the Palace of Theodron. The guardhouse and the palace are both fairly well secured from here, but the servants’ quarters are a problem.’
Kiva nodded. The servants, by the very nature of their work, needed access to almost everywhere. Consequently doors, stairs and passages left that complex to almost everywhere else in the palace. The defenders had blockaded what they could, but if there was a weak spot, it was there.
‘Sire, they’re on the floor below us. It’s only a matter of time before they break through that last door, and then they’ll be on the wall top. And once one man gets up here, the whole lot will follow.’
Kiva nodded again. ‘Then we pull back again. Make our last stand on the roof of the imperial apartments. That’s directly above the harbour, so we can watch for the last men leaving, and access to it from the rest of the roofs is just from two narrow wall walks. We can hold those longer than most places.’
The prefect nodded, though Kiva suspected from his expression he felt like arguing. They could hold as long as the fight came down to strength of arms. But if the enemy came up with their bows and decided to send an arrow storm across from one roof to another, the defending force would be halved in a heartbeat.
‘I shall give the order, Majesty.’
Kiva took a deep breath. Heart or no heart, the emperor could no longer hold himself back from the fight. His arm and blade needed to be added to the forces for this last struggle. There seemed almost no chance all the civilians in the harbour would escape, but if the army fought like lions, another hundred or two might make it, and numbers were what counted now.
The emperor strolled along the wall walk as though he had not a care in the world. An arrow clacked off the stonework a few paces from him, but he ignored it, even though he shook inside. He would be strong to the end for his people. They were dying to preserve what they could of the empire, and he couldn’t ask any man to do more than he was willing himself.
The roof of the imperial apartments was perhaps the best place to be if there was likely to be a cloud of arrows. Great fireplaces inside meant that chimney stacks rose here and there, and the rooms that were not host to such fires were heated with the circulatory hot air that rushed through cavities underfloor and through hollow tiles in the walls. The projecting hollows that released the air from that system meant further cover. Then there was the domed roof of the octagonal chamber, several raised skylights and a few other miscellaneous lumps and bumps. Agile and lucky men could escape a few arrows there.
Around him, as he found a good observation point, the last defenders of Velutio took their positions. The sun began to touch the horizon far to the west, and the channel from the city to the island of Isera was now thrown into deep shadow. Out across the lawns of the imperial palace, some nomad scum was standing atop the memorial statue to the emperor’s grandfather and namesake, Kiva Caerdin, who had once been crucified upon that very spot. If only they still had archers, that bastard would pay for defiling the statue with his presence.
There was a distant cracking and splintering noise, and suddenly men were flooding out onto the roof of the palace. A wall walk of 50 paces was all that now separated the Khan’s men from the last defenders of the city.
‘Places!’ yelled the prefect, and men fell into position at the end of that wall walk, shields locked together in one last shield-wall. Possibly the last the empire would ever raise.
The emperor took three slow breaths and started to walk forward, sheathing his sword.
‘Sire?’
‘My place is in that line.’
‘Majesty, no,’ he barked, stepping across and holding up his arms.
‘I have the final say and ultimate authority in Velutio. No man can deny me, Prefect. Now get out of the way.’
‘Sire, I…’
Kiva gently, but firmly, heaved the prefect aside and strode over to the end of the wall walk and the men there. He’d have liked to get it over fast – get to the front of the lines and take up a shield, but the press of men was tight and everyone was already in position. Instead, he found a place in the fourth line on a raised step and took up a spear, readying himself to use it. With the height advantage of the step, that line could strike at the attackers just as well as those at the front.
The enemy were coming, running around the wall, howling and shouting, waving weapons that gleamed in the golden rays of the setting sun. At least Kiva would die in the sunshine. This morning had been poor and damp, but the sun had burned off the moisture by noon, and the afternoon had been glorious.
The empire had been glorious. And now it was setting with the sun, and the emperor would do the same.
The first men hit the shields and slaughter erupted on the wall. The men’s shields took the brunt well and their swords made short work of the first few warriors. With no rail on the inside of the wall walk, those who took sword blows or jabs from spears simply toppled to their death, often pushed aside by their comrades in their hunger to be the next in line. Kiva waited for the signal.
A whistle came from the officer behind, and the shield-wall closed up tight and dropped down, taking a momentary breather as the enemy thundered against the linen and wood of their shields. In response to the whistle, the rear two lines joined the second in jabbing with spears, thrusting over the top of the shield-wall, a forest of clacking and rattling wood and iron as they thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew. Kiva felt the strange, sickening exhilaration of battle flow through his veins, suffusing his entire being. To take a life was an abhorrent thing, yet something primal within him thrilled to the feel of the blade biting deep into flesh and then sliding through the easier ma
tter within before pulling back for a release to the air in the knowledge that one more bastard who sought the downfall of the empire had gone to meet his gods while Kiva still drew breath.
And that was the mantra that became his killing song.
A nomad taken through the cheek, the spear smashing teeth and jaw and emerging through the other side covered in blood. Withdraw.
Another enemy of the empire gone and I still stand.
A straight thrust to the chest of a barbarian, deep between the ribs, severing the beating muscles of his heart. Withdraw as he topples from the wall.
Another enemy of the empire gone and I still stand.
A nomad again. This time a glancing blow to the upper arm that was naught but a flesh wound, but a twist with the spear and the screaming, injured clansman hurtled from the wall to certain death.
Another enemy of the empire gone and I still stand.
Suddenly, in the press, Kiva spotted an imperial captain’s uniform. The grey tower insignia put him as one of the men of Aldegund’s rebel westerners. Kiva, gritting his teeth, stepped forward, pressing into the mass of his soldiers to get at the traitor. He’d seen many men die today wearing an imperial uniform, and a number of them had been among the enemy, but this was the first time he had been able to strike the blow himself. Would that it were Aldegund himself. Kiva let all the fury of a man betrayed flow through his shoulders and into the great spear shaft. The soldier’s eyes burst wide as the spear entered his throat mid-way between apple and chin, and erupted from the back of his neck in jets of blood. The soldier tried to shriek, but nothing came out barring a gobbet of blood.
Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Page 36