The Broken Throne

by Christopher Nuttall

“If she doesn’t get here in a week, we’ll have to surrender,” Hansel said. “Our food won’t hold out much longer.”

  Emily felt a hot flash of anger. “Lord Burrows will kill everyone in the city,” she snapped, not bothering to conceal her irritation. “He’ll kill you too.”

  Hansel gave her an angry look, then a shrug of dismissal she was probably meant to find insulting. She would have been more annoyed if he hadn’t looked like a petulant little boy defying his mother. Emily watched his back for a moment, fighting the temptation to burn him to ashes, then turned to watch as the army moved into place. They were coolly professional, although there were clearly some inexperienced men amongst them. She doubted it would be long before the attack began.

  Randor must be breathing down Lord Burrows’ neck, demanding action, Emily thought, wryly. A smart professional would wait for starvation to take its toll.

  “They should be sending a messenger,” Hansel said. “Where is he?”

  “Perhaps they’re not sending a messenger,” Cat said, an hour later. No messenger had materialized. The siege was firmly in place. Lord Burrows should, technically, have sent someone to set a deadline for surrender, if the city was not relieved... but no one had come. Emily rather suspected that was a bad sign. No one in the city, including Hansel himself, was intended to survive. “Your back is pressed firmly against the wall.”

  Hansel scowled, but said nothing. His face was very pale. Emily found it hard to be sympathetic. Hansel had always assumed that his birth would protect him from the very worst consequences of his actions, but now... now he stood to lose as much as the commoners in the streets. Randor would behead Hansel if he was caught; his lands would go to someone actually reliable. Hansel wouldn’t even have the chance to go into exile until he could be recalled.

  At least they’re not trying to lure the mercenaries away, she thought. That might have been a complete disaster.

  Cat issued orders, carefully preparing the city for the forthcoming attack. There was no way to be certain where Lord Burrows would try to breach the wall – and an accident of war might give the attackers an unexpected chance to press the offensive – but they could take basic precautions. The inexperienced troops would sit on the walls, ready to repel attack, while the more experienced men would be held in reserve. They’d push the enemy back out of the city, then seal the breaches before they could be exploited. But she knew it would be very difficult to seal the breaches once the wall had been shattered.

  “So we hold the magic in reserve,” she said, when Cat had finished. “We could set fire to those frameworks from a distance.”

  “We will, when the attack begins,” Cat said. “But until then, we have to get ready.”

  He dismissed his subordinates, sending them to their duties. Emily stayed with him as he walked around the city, speaking to a handful of men as he inspected the defenses. Cat seemed to remember everyone, particularly the soldiers who’d fought at Cool Waters. He exchanged a few brief words with each of them, complimenting them on their skills and bravery in the face of the enemy. Emily had to admit he was getting good at raising morale and convincing men to follow him. It was something she had never been able to do.

  They follow me because of my reputation, she thought. But they follow Cat because they like him.

  They reached a wooden tower and scrambled up the scaffolding, casting wards to ensure that any watching archers couldn’t see them. Lord Burrows must be preparing to storm the city—he still hadn’t sent any messengers across the lines – and it was starting to look as if he wasn’t going to wait until the following day. His catapults were moving into position, readying themselves to hurl rocks into the city. They wouldn’t do that much damage to the core of the town, but they’d be utterly devastating in the slums. She suspected he’d launch flaming arrows into the city too. Eagle’s Rest would find it harder to fight back if it was burning to the ground.

  “This could get nasty,” Cat said, quietly. It was the first time he’d shown any doubts since they’d set off on their mission. “They’ll bombard us through the night, then start the main push tomorrow. We could lose.”

  “I know,” Emily said. She tried to think of something encouraging to say, but nothing came to mind. She wasn’t the sort of person who could offer meaningless reassurances, even to someone who wasn’t bright enough to realize the reassurances were meaningless. “We will give them a very hard time.”

  Cat sat on the wooden floor, resting his back against the wall. “Yes, we’ll give them a hard time,” he said. “And if they win, they’ll give us a very hard time.”

  Emily rolled her eyes as she sat next to him. It was a crude joke, although – compared to some of the jokes she’d heard at her first school – remarkably tame. She’d heard far worse from boys she’d feared. But Cat was right. If they lost, if the city was stormed, the population was going to be raped and murdered while their city was looted and burnt to the ground. Her stomach clenched just thinking about the horrors to come. There was nothing she could do about it.

  “I don’t want you to stay here,” Cat said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “If the city is on the verge of falling, if they are going to storm the city, I want you to teleport out.”

  “I can’t leave you,” Emily said.

  Cat gave her a sharp look. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “You are far more important than I am. If I die, nothing will happen. If you die, hope dies with you.”

  “I’m not that important,” Emily said, stung. A gust of wind blew through the city. The tower quivered in its wake. “And if I run...”

  “No one will think any less of you,” Cat said. “Please, Emily. Don’t stay here.”

  Emily felt... Emily wasn’t sure how she felt. She knew that Cat had a point. There was nothing to be gained by fighting to the bitter end, if the city was doomed. And yet... she felt an odd kind of anger at his casual dismissal of the danger to her reputation. No one would blame a woman for fleeing, or her male relatives for sending her away, but they wouldn’t take the woman very seriously either. She’d thought Cat knew better than to treat her as a pampered princess...

  ... And yet, she knew he was right.

  “If that’s what you want,” she said, reluctantly.

  She felt torn. Cat had told her that their relationship was nothing more than friends with benefits, that it could never be anything more than friends with benefits, but she didn’t want to leave him behind. Did she care for him more than she should? Or... he was her friend, damn it. She’d never left a friend behind as long as there was something she could do. She had enough power to make Lord Burrows regret he’d ever entered a sham marriage with Alicia...

  “I’m sorry,” Cat said. He patted her arm, awkwardly, as the tower shifted again. “But I don’t see any other choice.”

  The tower rocked, then started to collapse. Emily heard a crashing noise as the supports gave way, the wooden flooring under her bottom starting to splinter. She jumped to her feet, hastily raising her wards as the entire structure tumbled to the ground. Cat caught hold of her, casting a spell that yanked them both into the air. Emily looked up, saw the roof descending on them and hastily cast a ward of her own. The wood crashed into the protective bubble of magic and exploded in all directions.

  “Get us down,” Emily snapped. Their magics were interfering, clashing together. It wouldn’t be long before one of the spells snapped, leaving them vulnerable. And falling to their deaths, if it was the wrong spell. “Hurry!”

  Cat worked his magic, carefully lowering them to the ground. Emily tensed, mustering a handful of other spells and holding them at the ready. The tower had been fragile, but it hadn’t been that fragile. A dozen men in leathers had spent the entire day in it and it hadn’t collapsed under their weight. No, that had been deliberate sabotage. She raised a second ward as soon as they touched down, ready for anything from a sneaky hex to a full-blown curse. Nothing happened.

  “Shit,” Cat said. He stepped through the
pile of wreckage. “Someone put a pretty strong hex on the struts. We were meant to plunge to our deaths.”

  “And we didn’t even sense it,” Emily said. It was becoming a habit, although – in this case – it was easy to see why they hadn’t been alerted. The spells had been put on the wooden struts, far below where they’d been. And yet, someone had to have tailed them through the city, waiting for the chance to strike. “Who is it?”

  “Someone who is very good at hiding,” Cat growled. “Probably because he’s too much of a coward to strike openly.”

  Emily shrugged. She’d read books where assassins appeared out of nowhere and challenged their targets to a duel, killing them with some semblance of honor, but the real world didn’t work like that. King Randor and his noblemen might talk of honor and chivalry and playing the game, yet they wouldn’t hesitate to hire assassins who struck from the shadows whenever they really wanted someone dead. Cat might be personally offended that his would-be assassin refused to show his face, but Emily found it hard to care. The only thing that mattered was that the assassin wanted her dead.

  She reached out with her senses, but sensed nothing and no one apart from Cat. He was casting a handful of tracking spells, trying to locate the assassin, but it didn’t look as if he was having any luck. Someone who could cast a string of low-power – and yet effective – spells wouldn’t have any trouble masking his trail. By now, he could be halfway across the city, lost within the crowd. There was no hope of catching him...

  A thought struck her as Cat banished his spells. What if... what if Cat was the assassin? The thought nagged at her mind, tormenting her. Cat had the power and skill to cast the spells the assassin had used and yet... she shook her head, telling herself she was being utterly absurd. Cat had shared her bed and saved her life. He’d had ample opportunity to kill or capture her if he’d wished, or simply betray the rescue mission before the plan could get off the ground. And he could have let her be executed simply by doing nothing.

  Sorry, she thought, silently apologising to Cat for suspecting him. It was stupid. Cat was the only one of them who didn’t have a stake in the civil war. I’m letting paranoia get the better of me.

  A horse and rider galloped up to them, the rider whipping the horse so badly that the poor beast was foaming at the mouth. Somehow, Emily wasn’t surprised to recognize Tobias. The nobleman took a look at the wrecked tower, then glared at Cat while pretending Emily wasn’t there. She knew she should be concerned, but... she shrugged. For once, she was happy to be ignored by the aristocrats.

  “My brother requests your urgent presence,” Tobias said. “The enemy is preparing to attack.”

  “Interesting timing,” Cat mused. He kicked a piece of wood as he started to move. “The bastards just tried to kill us.”

  Tobias looked supremely unconcerned. “My brother requests your urgent presence,” he repeated. “Are you coming?”

  “Yes,” Cat said. “We’re on our way.”

  He winked at Emily as Tobias lashed his horse back into motion, cantering down the street with a complete disregard for anyone in his way. “They didn’t send a messenger.”

  “It looks that way,” Emily agreed. There were too many Levellers in the command structure for Lord Burrows to have contacted Hansel without them being aware of it. “And that means no quarter.”

  Lord Burrows didn’t wait for them to reach the headquarters before opening fire. Giant rocks arced over Eagle’s Rest and crashed down, seemingly at random. Arrows followed, hissing through the air and falling into the city. Emily had no idea what they thought they were aiming at, if they were aiming at anything at all, but it hardly mattered. The prospect of random death from the sky was enough to panic everyone. There simply weren’t enough troops on the ground to keep the population under control.

  At least we set up a handful of shelters, Emily thought, as a rock struck a nearby building and fell into the streets. Cracks ran through the edifice, suggesting that the building had been badly weakened. We should be able to keep our people alive.

  “They’re trying to soften us up,” Gars said, when they entered the war room. The mercenary sounded reassuringly professional. “They killed a handful of sentries on the walls when they opened fire, but otherwise casualties have been remarkably light.”

  “They’ll be advancing forward under cover, now our ability to see what’s happening outside the walls has been limited,” Cat said. He snapped his fingers at a messenger. “Inform Captain Travis that he is to detach extra units to cover the walls.”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  Emily winced as she heard a rock crashing to the ground, none too far away. The damage would be limited, at least until Lord Burrows started shooting flaming arrows into the city, but it wouldn’t do anything for civilian morale. Or for troop morale, come to think of it.

  “Maybe I should sneak out again,” she said to Cat. “Give them something else to think about.”

  “A splendid idea,” Hansel said. He looked very pale. “Let her show them what she can do.”

  “Not yet,” Cat said. “We want them thoroughly committed first.”

  Emily eyed him, suspecting that he had other reasons not to want to send her into the enemy camp again, but held her peace as Cat started to issue more orders. Lord Burrows wouldn’t want to send his men into a death trap if it could be avoided, she was sure. He’d be sneaking them forward, probably under a tortoise. If Cat could get his people in place, ready to beat them off, Lord Burrows might think better of it.

  Or he might get his sappers to work, digging under the wall, she thought. She had no idea if Lord Burrows had enough gunpowder, particularly after her work, to bring down a sizable chunk of the wall, but it was something he would try. Or maybe he’d find something that didn’t need gunpowder to work. There were oils that burned so intensely they would do considerable damage to the wall. Or...

  “We can expect an attack at any moment,” Cat said. Emily drew her attention back to him, feeling a twinge of guilt. He was giving an inspiring speech and she hadn’t even bothered to listen! “And when they come, we will be ready for them.”

  “And if they want to talk, we will listen,” Hansel said. “I...”

  Gus drew his sword. “You will not betray us, My Lord,” he said, sharply. “Today, you stand or fall with us.”

  Hansel let out an incoherent sound. “I...”

  “I’m sure the viscount means merely to stall them by talking, at which he is an expert,” Cat said, dryly. “I fear it looks as if no one will be permitted to surrender” – he shot an unreadable look at Gus – “but we may win time by babbling.”

  Lord Burrows is too smart to let that happen, Emily thought, as the ground shook again. We won’t be able to stall him for long.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CAT, AS IT TURNED OUT, WAS wrong.

  Lord Burrows launched no attack as the morning slowly turned into afternoon, then into evening. The constant bombardment did minor damage – and wore at already frayed nerves – but no major offensive began. Emily wondered, as she alternatively worked with the magicians to tighten the wards and assist the chirurgeons with the wounded, if Lord Burrows was trying to stall his master. The bombardment was a hellishly effective way of doing something without actually putting very much at risk.

  And we’re taking a beating, she thought, as she tried to sleep in an underground shelter. The constant sound of rocks crashing against buildings, sometimes knocking them over, weakened the population’s determination to resist. They know we can’t strike back.

  She slept poorly and awoke feeling unwell, but she forced herself to eat a large breakfast. Viscount Hansel and his brother didn’t seem to feel any need to stint on their meals, although she rather suspected it didn’t matter. Cat, who’d been watching the enemy from behind a set of powerful wards, believed that an attack was going to begin at any moment. It would be hard to hold Eagle’s Rest against a determined attack.

  Either we hurt them en
ough to make them back off or they storm the city, Emily thought. Ice stabbed at her heart as she remembered her promise to Cat. There’s no middle ground.

  She finished her breakfast and walked to the observation tower. They’d woven a considerable amount of magic into the stone, but the tower had already taken a series of glancing hits from the enemy catapults. Emily’s magicians were hard at work, repairing or strengthening the wards, yet everyone knew it was just a matter of time before the tower came crashing down. She followed Cat up the stairs and into the observation room, peering out over the enemy forces. It looked as though Lord Burrows had received reinforcements in the night. There were thousands of men and hundreds of siege engines in plain view.

  “They’re about to move,” Cat said, pointing towards the enemy position. A large black flag was being raised, flapping in the breeze. “And they’re promising no quarter.”

  A trumpet blew before Emily could formulate a response. Moments later, arrows hissed through the air. A couple of men who’d been standing on the battlements were struck before they could take cover, their bodies tumbling to the ground. Other arrows, some charmed, smashed harmlessly against the wards. The magicians had put a lot of work into their defenses.

  “Here they come,” Cat said. He turned, raising his voice. “Archers ready!”

  Emily shivered as the enemy line started to advance. The tortoises – she’d often thought of them as coffins – moved first, relying on their wooden shields to protect them from the city’s archers. Behind them, the giant siege engines rattled forward, pushed by men who were sheltered behind their bulk. Emily gritted her teeth, knowing most of those men were pressed into service. Even the bravest men thought twice when they were asked to volunteer to push a siege engine into war. They were probably shackled to make it harder for them to escape.

  “Archers fire!” Cat bellowed.

  The archers, hidden behind the walls, loosed their first volley. They weren’t aiming very precisely – they weren’t aiming at all – but there were so many enemy soldiers advancing on the city that the odds of hitting something were good. Emily felt a flash of déjà vu – she’d stood on the ramparts and watched a similar offensive back at Farrakhan – mingled with a grim awareness that this time, the enemies were human. The orcs hadn’t been human. It had been easy to forget they were living creatures. Here...