by Matthew Ward
Melanna grimaced. “It’s the people I fear for.”
“That’s why they won’t let him.” The wrinkled face dipped. The voice become a murmur. “To my shame, I might have taken Cardivan’s coin five years ago.”
The confession was little surprise. The Veteran’s Lodges were bastions of the traditions Melanna had flouted. “What’s changed?”
“My kin stopped living in the shadow of wars yet to come. They glimpsed a future beyond trumpets and shield walls. A gift generations of Emperors promised, but only you sought to deliver.”
She stared at the gate, cruel imagination inking faces behind every scream. “And yet still they have to fight.”
“Because they choose to, savim. Not because they complete a chieftain’s tithe, or because their Empress seeks glory. This is not battle demanded by fealty, but offered in service. Do not reject the gift.”
“I don’t mean to.” Melanna, her heart brimming with humility’s contradictory pride, let her voice blossom for all to hear. “Whatever lies beyond that gate, the House of Saran owes you all a debt. I will see it repaid.”
As if on cue, Apara – ruined gown exchanged for the same mismatched splendour of the Blackwinders – at last hurried across the courtyard, a rigid bundle in her hands. She set its brass-bound foot in the shaped stirrup alongside Melanna’s knee and pivoted the rest for her to take. As it came upright, the swell of emerald silks streamed behind, setting free a spread-winged silver owl upon its glittering field.
Not her father’s banner, which had been lost on Govanna Field, nor even her grandfather’s, but that of her great-great-grandfather Alfric, who’d torn Tregard from a complacent Republic. That owl had once proclaimed the city the property of the House of Saran. Though its silks were tattered and moth-eaten, it did so again.
“Be careful with that,” said Apara. “It’s worth a fortune to the right collector.”
Jorcari frowned. Melanna smiled. “You can do what I ask?”
“All this death has brought Otherworld close. The mists will take me wherever I’ve need. I’d rather be with you.”
“I trust no one else to see that Triumphal Gate is sealed.”
“But why? There’s no one left to keep out. All of Cardivan’s forces are already in the city. If this goes badly, you’ll be trapped.”
“Not me. Cardivan wanted this city. Let him choke on it.”
Apara nodded and withdrew. Trumpets sounded on the outer wall. The gate rumbled open.
Melanna hoisted the banner high and spurred away. “Saranal Brigantim!”
With one voice, the city replied.
They kept coming. Inspiring to see, were one a connoisseur of doomed gallantry. Cardivan, who cared little for gallantry of any kind, merely found it remarkable that so many folk could be so deluded.
What matter that Amitra’s charge had stalled? His horsemen had driven deep into the mob, splitting a single, unstoppable tide in twain, one half caught between the obsidian walls of Ravencourt and the outriders’ spears, and the other being ground to offal between those spears and the advancing stag-shields. The dead of both sides lay trampled beneath, but discipline and superior weaponry would carry the day, as they always did.
One last effort, one last glorious charge of spears would turn the tide. But there were no spears to be had. The sloping street remained empty. No sign of Ganandra’s warband, nor the others sent for since. Just the two hundreds of Cardivan’s own bodyguard, and a trail of wounded being dragged to physicians’ care.
That the clamour from the neighbouring streets seemed louder did little to ease Cardivan’s mood. Seldom had he heard the hated name Saranal bellowed so often in so fleeting a span.
“Where’s Ganandra?” he growled.
Brackar tore his gaze from the fighting. “I can find out.”
“Yes. No. I need you with me. You!” Cardivan stabbed a finger at a nearby cataphract. “Triumphal Gate. Find Ganandra! I’ll have his spears or his head! Leave the choice to him!”
The cataphract galloped away, cloak spread wide in the rain.
A great cheer went up from the plaza as the stag-shields reclaimed the fountain, driving the mob back towards the Old Quarter. A grey-haired veteran stood his ground amid his fellows’ retreat, a great notched axe whirling bloody circles. A shieldsman collapsed beneath the heavy blade, leather helm and skull split open. The veteran sent another sprawling back, right arm parted from his body. Then the axe lodged deep in a shield, and vengeful spears came forward.
The axeman died with a mouth full of blood. Gaps opened up as the mob at last lost heart, old men and young scrambling away, abandoned by the Empress for whom their neighbours had fought and died. Drawing purpose for the uncertainty of their foes, the shields of Silsaria and Redsigor ground forward.
Cardivan nodded, indulging satisfaction. The moment he’d sought. The chance to join in a victory well won, for his men to see that he shared their travails.
He raised his sword high. “Tirane Areg—”
Trumpets blared from the west, drowning out the battle cry. A thunder of hooves swallowed all. The plaza’s western streets – streets that had been empty moments before – filled with emerald green and beneath a silver owl, wings spread wide.
The Silsarian line, steeped in victory moments before, now died almost before they knew their danger, their shields locked tight against a beaten foe and their backs to bejewelled spears and gleaming swords, to merciless riders garbed in the armour of Emperors long gone into mist.
And at the head of the charge, a woman who should have been dead or captured or anywhere but there. The city had called, and the Empress had come.
Lost to a sudden, seething rage, Cardivan rounded on the nearest cataphract. “Find my worthless son! Tell him his future is dying beneath the walls of Ravencourt!”
Without waiting for reply, Cardivan thrust back his spurs.
Triumphal Gate’s occupiers had expected trouble, but with the ramparts cleared their attention had been focused, along murder-hole lined passageways and iron doors closed to hold even the most determined of attackers at bay. A Tressian regiment could have ground itself to ruin on those stairs, outmatched by a garrison of a few score. But it had been a long time since Apara had troubled herself with front doors.
Its site chosen with care made possible by Otherworld’s closeness to the ephemeral world, the mist gate cast her small company of Immortals into the heart of Triumphal Gate’s barbican. The Silsarians – their eyes to the city rather than the chambers at their back – stood no chance at all.
Wiping her sword clean on a corpse’s robes, she tallied the survivors of her assault. Three had died retaking the barbican. Two more had suffered injuries that would see them return to the mists before nightfall. Of the survivors, several were pale beneath their helms. Three more sat slumped against the wall, heads in hands. Not a result of wounds taken during the attack, but the malice of Otherworld’s mists. What should have been a straightforward passage had been oppressive, suffocating – the mists themselves more grey than greenish-white. Apara had felt it during her foray to Haldravord, but had dismissed it as a projection of her own doubts about Rosa’s rescue. Now she knew better. Otherworld and the Raven were bound, their moods linked. She wondered what had riled him so, and hoped never to find out.
“The doors are barricaded, savim.”
The havildar even offered a small bow. To her. A Tressian and a thief. What should have called for amusement offered only solemn pride. “And the winding room?”
“This way.”
Apara hesitated, her gaze stolen by a glimpse of Silsarian warriors through the narrow window. No more than a dozen, and all of them running for the gate as if the Raven himself were on their heels. And that might have been true enough. Though Tregard were still in uproar, the tone was different. Anger remained, but the fear was gone.
The winding room was a jumble of broken bodies and mangled mechanisms. Even had they been whole, Apara doubted she’d hav
e understood their function.
“Close the gate, she said.” Apara threw up her arms to encompass the baffling array of ropes, gears and pulleys. “I’d better go down and push.”
A thunder of hooves far below drew her back to a wallward window. A column of Silsarian riders, Thirava’s thin features readily identifiable even through the rain, galloped out of the tangled streets and vanished beneath the gate house. Moments later, she heard their hooves on the Golden Way’s flagstones. Good riddance.
“Here!” The havildar stood in one corner of the room, his hand about a thick, grease-smeared rope stretched between a pulley and a jammed windlass. “This one.”
Careful not to snag a foot on the dead, Apara moved to join him. “You’re certain?”
“I held the watch here for five years.” He shrugged. “Half these counterweights are for driving home the locking bolts, or raising the gate once it’s closed. Not this. We split this, and the city stays sealed until we get lifting teams in place.”
Apara plucked an axe from a nearby Rhalesh corpse. “Then we’d better get to it.”
After years trapped on the throne she’d yearned for all her life, Melanna found freedom in that charge. The sword didn’t care about politics, or the balance of power. It had no ego to soothe, nor temper to placate. It cared only that the hand wielding it was strong, and filled with purpose. On that day Melanna Saranal, Empress and Dotha Rhaled, knew purpose unflinching.
It didn’t matter that her armour no longer fitted as well as once it had, or that the sword was heavier than she remembered. There was only the wind in her hair, the enemy ahead and the banner snapping behind. Raven take Jack, take Cardivan, take Thirava – take all those who’d worked so hard to fill her with doubt and shatter what she’d built. To the Raven with them all, and if it was she who sent them to his keeping, so much the better.
A Silsarian shieldsman screamed and reeled away, blood gushing from his shoulder. Another levelled a spear to pluck her from the saddle. Melanna struck the weapon aside and hacked down.
To her left, where the banner’s burden left her vulnerable, Jorcari roared with every thrust of his spear. Blackwinders glutted Otherworld’s mists with dead as only old warriors could. Behind them swept Immortals desperate to restore tarnished honour, and an army of vengeful citizenry.
The shieldsmen broke, fleeing back across the plaza in one and twos, and then by the score. Outriders were dragged from their horses, or swept from saddles by Blackwinders’ spears. Melanna parried a chieftain’s vicious swing and struck him screaming from his saddle. Then there was only the fountain, a tideline of dead, a blur of gold as Cardivan’s cataphracts galloped to the charge, and no time to do anything but meet it in kind.
Banner streaming behind, Melanna thrust back her spurs and gave herself to the madness.
“Saranal Brigantim!” roared Jorcari.
The rumble of hooves gave way to an almighty crash of spears and shields. Melanna’s ears rang to the screams of men and horses. Her sword chimed as it met a cataphract’s, the impact twisting her about in the saddle. Battle lines blurred, Silsarian gold bleeding away between the Blackwinders’ emerald glory as the clash of armies yielded to intimate duels.
Catching sight of Cardivan, Melanna spurred on. A brute in champion’s finery slewed to block her path. She knew him by reputation, and only for deeds of which no champion should be proud. A murderer hiding behind notions of honour he’d never understand. A braggart. A thug. Precisely the sort of man she’d expect Cardivan to choose as champion. He bore no shield, only a long-bladed headtaker sword that few had the strength to wield well.
Melanna met the first swing with a parry that shivered her arm, all but ripping the sword from her grasp. The second scattered golden scales from her shoulder, leaving a livid graze beneath. As the third hacked down, Melanna dug her knees into her horse’s flank. She twisted as it sprang aside, and the blow meant to split her skull hissed harmlessly through the rain. A second nudge and her mare cantered clear through the anarchic melee.
“You don’t match your reputation, essavim,” Brackar leered as she wheeled about.
Melanna’s skin crawled at the misused term of endearment. Worse, she felt the ache of muscles fallen fallow – the ironclad princessa of the past softened by an Empress’ comforts. Brackar was stronger. The headtaker sword gave him a reach she couldn’t match.
But she’d spent a life uncaring of her limits. She’d not change now.
A rolling boom swept the plaza, warning Melanna that Apara had done as she’d asked. Triumphal Gate was sealed. Cardivan would find no escape. And tangled in its echoes, something sweeter and sadder. A song of old memories and old times, borne aloft on a chorus of women’s voices. Melanna had sung it herself, when the Goddess had moved her to do so, though she never recalled the words afterwards.
Far beyond Brackar, beyond where Cardivan sheltered behind the shields of his cataphracts, the roadway’s crest filled with the white robes and glittering, ethereal spears of the lunassera.
Melanna’s flagging limbs found new vigour. “I’m more than my reputation.”
With a wolfish grin, Brackar rowelled his steed to the charge.
Melanna thrust back her spurs, sword levelled as a spear. No fear. No fury. Only a calm she’d never known. Peace amid the battle’s rage.
Brackar let go his reins to take the sword in both hands. The killing blade swung to take her head. The rain ceased and the first sunlight split the clouds. And in that heartbeat, it seemed to Melanna that the Goddess’ sword again found its flame for the briefest of moments. Or perhaps it was simply the sun’s glory reflected from the steel, Lumestra offering aid where her sister could not.
In the end, there was almost nothing. A soft tug that travelled through Melanna’s body and passed like rain on the meadow. Already masterless, the headtaker sword hissed over her head. Brackar’s horse cantered on, his corpse still in the saddle, throat torn wide.
Melanna’s eyes met Cardivan’s.
Turning his horse, he fled.
What remained of the Silsarians joined him in flight, but of escape, they found none. To the north, there was only the citizen army. To the west, the plaza was thick with Immortals and Blackwinders. To the south, the lunassera. And to the east, the foreboding gates of Ravencourt Temple remained shut. A low, murderous growl rose in crescendo as the men and women of Tregard recognised the plaza for the cage it had become. Shieldsmen and outriders threw down their blades and cried for mercy. Cataphracts fought and died between the hammer of Jorcari’s Blackwinders and the anvil of Chakdra’s penitent Immortals.
Even as Melanna rode to join them, Cardivan’s horse reared before a mace-blow. The would-be Emperor landed heavily, his helm rolling away across the flagstones. With a howl, those he’d sought to rule closed in.
“Enough!” cried Melanna. “Anyone who lays a hand on him answers to me!”
The onrush stuttered, halted, cooler heads prevailing over the rash. Cardivan gazed warily up at her from hands and knees, but said nothing.
Beckoning to a nearby Blackwinder, Melanna yielded the venerable banner and swung from the saddle. Weary muscles and chafed skin howled a symphony in tune with her injured shoulder. Making no attempt to hide discomfort, she bore down on Cardivan. Warriors of both sides, captives and victors, drew back from her – from the sword still slick with Brackar’s blood – until Empress and presumptuous king were alone in a circle of blades.
“It’s ended, my king,” said Melanna. “The city is sealed. Your men will be hunted through the streets, and you will find escape only through my mercy or the Raven’s gift.”
There was no pleasure in this moment. None. In the victory, yes, but that victory had cost too much. Tavar Rasha. Haldrane. So many men and women whose names Melanna would never know, who’d fought for her when sworn protectors had cast aside all honour.
No pleasure. But perhaps a measure of justice.
Ignoring the stab of pain from a wounded shoulder
, she spread her arms. “You venerate tradition above all, isn’t that right, Cardivan? Tradition demands that we of royal blood settle our differences with swords.” When he offered no answer but a dead-eyed stare, she pressed on. “Not long ago, I offered to duel you for the throne. I offer again. Face me in the ring of blades and, live or die, your warriors will go free. Or you can kneel without a fight. I’ll spare your life, but they – every last one – will feed the pyres at Ravencourt.”
The plaza went deathly silent. There were hundreds of prisoners in the plaza alone. Across the city, they surely numbered thousands. Kings and princes doomed that many all the time through arrogance and war. But to do so now? When all Cardivan need do otherwise was to duel a woman he’d ever proclaimed his inferior?
Faced with the same choice, Melanna wouldn’t have hesitated. But slowly, wretchedly – and without once even meeting her gaze – Cardivan cast his sword to the ground and sank first to one knee, and then the other. Proclaiming with bright clarion the esteem in which he held his warriors’ lives.
And Melanna Saranal, who’d never had the slightest intent of sending anyone to the pyre, closed her eyes and revelled in the warmth of the sun.
Forty-Five
Her smoke-blackened features worn smooth by repeated rains, the serathi sculpted into the cornice looked as though she intended to continue her staring match with Vordal Tower for centuries to come.
