A Duel of Evils

by Anthony Ryan

  Vartek took his place at the head of The Sea Eagles who had threatened mutiny if not permitted to attack at the general’s side. The engineers could be seen running from the tunnels as plumes of black smoke were now rising. Then, with a guttural roar, flame vomited from the tunnel mouths and a great tremor shifted the earth beneath our feet. Every man drew breath, eyes locked on the walls as countless prayers ascended to the gods. For a second it seemed all had been in vain, for the walls stood, as whole and unmoving as ever. But then the gods saw fit to answer us, two great breaches, each twenty feet wide, appearing in an instant of tumbled stone and rising dust. My General won his name that night, the Spear-point, for he charged the breach with such speed the Sea Eagles had to sprint to keep up. A great cry arose as the remaining battalions surged forward, fierce and hungry, for who now could doubt victory would be won this night? Surely the city, and all its spoils, would be ours come the dawn.

  It appears likely the Volarians were expecting the conclusion of this siege to conform to prior experience; a furious final battle to eliminate the remaining defenders followed by an extended period of loot, rapine, and wholesale slaughter. If so, it was an expectation quickly dispelled, for on clearing the breaches, Vartek’s men found no Kethians waiting to sell their lives in a valiant last stand. Instead they found only more walls.

  Tavurek has not been idle, Entril wrote to his wife the next day, a weary bitterness evident in his words. Whilst we tunnelled he built, thick walls confront our men at every turn. These are more a maze than a barrier, their course winding and their height varied. Men become confused when attempting to navigate them, and when an assault is made at one point it is invariably overlooked by another. The Kethian archers have grown skilled with ceaseless practice and their slingers are surely descended from the Dermos. Today I saw a man take a lead shot through the eye from over forty paces.

  This ‘Battle of the Maze,’ as it became known, seems to have dragged on for several days, the Volarians achieving some breakthroughs at considerable cost only to find another set of walls confronting them a few streets on. As General’s Eye, Entril had the task of attempting to find Tavurek amongst the chaos of continuing battle, compiling numerous reports, each one seemingly more outlandish than the other:

  He leaped into our ranks, sliced the heads from four men then turned to mist before we could cut him down . . . He moved from rooftop to rooftop, leaping farther than any man could and loosing arrows at us in mid-flight . . . I saw him turn our own sergeant against us, just reached out and touched him, and this man began hacking down soldiers he had served with for years . . .

  On the fourth day Vartek seems to have suffered an uncharacteristic loss of military ardour, perhaps due to the growing butcher’s bill—Entril estimates Volarian losses to date at some three thousand men—or simple fatigue. In any case, he ordered a halt to further attacks and retired to his tent with only his slave woman for company. There is a certain discomfort in Entril’s tone as he tells of raised voices in the General’s tent, the woman heard to be pleading with him, both angry and tearful. ‘You know what must be done here. You know what commands that thing. Falter now and watch the world burn!’

  Whether the words of a mere slave had any effect on Vartek is a matter of conjecture, but it appears he emerged from his tent the following morning with a renewed spirit. Fresh troops were sent into the maze, attacking any identified weak spots, all battalion commanders being ordered to maintain pressure without pause. Vartek himself then mustered the surviving Sea Eagles and took to ship along with some five thousand men, every vessel so laden with troops the waves threatened to swamp the rails according to Entril. As battle raged in the city, Vartek sailed out to rendezvous with the blockading Volarian fleet, calling all ships into close order and launching an immediate attack on the Kethian harbour. It appears Tavurek may have anticipated such a move for, on clearing the harbour wall, the oncoming ships found themselves assailed by continuous volleys of fire arrows and missiles launched from newly constructed trebuchet and mangonels. Smoke choked every breath, one Volarian sea captain wrote in his log shortly after. The ships became so closely packed the masts were like a forest, bobbing in the swell as the fire raged.

  Undaunted, Vartek led The Sea Eagles across the decks of the massed fleet and onto the quayside where they were met by the well-ordered ranks of the Kethian regular army. It is clear a furious and bloody encounter then ensued, Vartek in the thick of it as always. Although outnumbered, Vartek’s Eagles managed to hold the quay long enough for reinforcing Volarian troops to clamber across the smoke-shrouded decks and join the battle. By nightfall the docks were firmly in Volarian hands and a steady stream of reinforcements was being conveyed to the city by sea. Kethia’s fate was sealed, although, as Entril testifies, her people showed scant awareness of the fact:

  The entire city is raised against us. The old, the young, the infirm, all stirred to inhuman efforts by some unnatural means. Children leap at us from windows and doorways; skinny, ragged wretches, screaming hate as they stab, scratch, and bite, often urged on by their mothers who display little hesitation in joining them in death. I saw an old man cast pots filled with lamp oil at an advancing company, then set himself alight before leaping into their midst. Streets are battlegrounds and houses fortresses. In one case it cost an elite battalion fifty men to conquer one merchant’s house, counting only twenty bodies among the rubble, none of them soldiers. There is truly something vile at work in this city.

  It took another five days, street by street and house by house, until the centre was reached. The unnamed building where the Kethians once chose their kings had become a stout fortress, ringed with barricades, the gaps between the mighty columns filled with brick and the roof crowded with archers and slingers. The more florid Volarian accounts have Vartek pause at this point to deliver a rousing and eloquent speech to his exhausted troops, full of passionate invective on the inherent superiority of Volarian society and the well-deserved fate of the Kethians. There are various versions of the speech, none of which I have chosen to include for the simple reason that, according to Entril and other contemporary accounts, Vartek never spoke a single word of it. Instead, he reordered his ranks to fully encircle the building, ensured all wounded were conveyed to the healers, saw to the distribution of food and water, then called up the siege engines to clear the archers from the roof and blast holes in the Kethian barricades.

  When it came time for the final assault, naturally Vartek was the first through the breach, although he can hardly have been expecting the spectacle that confronted him, as later described by Entril:

  We found only death. They lay entwined—men, women, and children—their faces serene, a single deep cut on every throat. We counted over four thousand and every one dead by their own hand, and willingly, smiling as their blood seeped away. This was the only occasion on which I saw my General truly enraged. He tore through the Kethian temple, his voice echoing as he called for Tavurek to face him, a challenge met only by the laughter of a madman. We found him on his throne, laughing and free of fear, his great axe cast aside and his hands empty. My General picked up the axe and tossed it at the feet of this mad king, commanding him to pick it up, do some honour to his people with a courageous end. But Tavurek only laughed harder. My General stepped closer to him, drawing his sword back, and I heard him ask, ‘What are you?’

  The king’s laughter faded slowly and he shrugged before replying, ‘I am . . . very patient. And this has all been highly diverting.’

  My General killed him then, a single thrust to the heart, a far greater mercy than he deserved.

  Of the Kethian population, only some three thousand survived the siege and all seem to have been rendered mad by the experience. In accordance with custom, the menfolk were executed and the women and children sold into slavery, although it seems unlikely a maddened slave would fetch more than the most meagre price. Karvalev’s fate is not recorded, though some have sought to ascribe the later writings of
an Atethian scholar to him as evidence that he survived the city’s fall. These works do display a notable stylistic similarity to Karvalev, but their subject matter—a treatise on the most effective methods of growing cabbages, for example—seems far too mundane to have occupied such a mind.

  Entril’s letters cease at the conclusion of the Kethian campaign, but he is known to have stayed at Vartek’s side for much of his subsequent career. They fought together in over twenty separate campaigns as Volaria consolidated its gains and the Forging Age drew to a close. Entril achieved Council-man status shortly before his death, having founded a dynasty which continues to occupy a council seat to this day.

  Vartek refused a seat on the council, offered in spite of the fact that he still owned but one slave, and retired to a coastal villa near Varral. He is known to have fathered several children, all being declared free at time of birth by special decree of the council. He died at the age of sixty-nine, his will ordering the mother of his children be freed upon his death and all his property be rendered to her care. His four sons all entered the army but none ever ascended to the same heights of renown, for what son could ever hope to escape such a shadow? The Vartek dynasty was not fated to last, the name disappearing from the records during the Great Cleansing, presumably the result of an unfortunate religious adherence. However, some scholars have contended his descendants were among the exiles who fled to the damp land in the north, so it is possible his blood still lingers in some illiterate and unwashed vessel.

  Kethia is now but a ruin on a hill overlooking a thriving port built by those who ruined her, adding further insult by stealing her name: New Kethia. It is said that when the city fell the Volarians salted the earth so nothing would ever again grow on such hated ground. However, My Emperor will note the illustrations provided by my Volarian hireling show copious weeds sprouting among the weathered stone, so this may well be another mythic aspect to a tale already rich in improbabilities.

  I remain, Sire, your most humble and loyal servant,

  Lord Verniers Alishe Someren.

  END

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  About the author

  Anthony Ryan was born in Scotland in 1970 but spent much of his adult life living and working in London. After a long career in the British Civil Service he took up writing full time after the success of his first novel Blood Song, Book One of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy. He has a degree in history, and his interests include art, science and the unending quest for the perfect pint of real ale.

  Discover other titles by Anthony Ryan:

  The Draconis Memoria

  The Waking Fire

  The Legion of Flame

  The Raven’s Shadow Series

  Blood Song - Raven's Shadow Book I

  Tower Lord - Raven’s Shadow Book II

  Queen of Fire - Raven’s Shadow Book III

  The Lord Collector - A Raven’s Shadow Novella

  The Lady of Crows - A Raven’s Shadow Novella

  The Slab City Blues Series

  Slab City Blues

  A Song for Madame Choi

  A Hymn to Gods Long Dead

  The Ballad of Bad Jack

  An Aria for Ragnarok

  For information on where to find these books, free audio downloads, news and general wittering about stuff he likes, check out Anthony Ryan’s website at: http://anthonyryan.net