Too Cold to Bleed

by D Murray

  “Aye,” the soldier said with a dry, tired voice.

  Thaskil reached over and pulled the glowing end of a fractured section of window frame. He lifted it up as the man raised the tabac to his mouth with trembling hands. It fell into the man’s lap, such was the palsy in his hand.

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Let me.” Thaskil took the tabac, and placed it between the dried-out lips of the soldier. He raised the burning end of wood and lit the leaf. Yellow wisps of smoke billowed and curled about the man’s face as he puffed. The ember glowed bright, its warm red light almost being sucked into the deep, dark hollows of the man’s eyes. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Mikell,” the man said, his eyes flicking up. “Lieutenant in the City Guard.”

  “You were in Carte during Grunnxe’s attack?”

  “Aye,” Mikell grunted, taking the tabac roll away from his lips with shaky fingers. “The dead rising. The Solansians, and their demons.”

  Thaskil blew out his cheeks and shook his head. “Aye, well, you’ll have seen your fill.”

  “You, sir?” Mikell asked.

  “Apula.”

  Mikell’s eyes widened and his mouth sagged open. “Dajda’s grace. Are you the young captain that held Apula?”

  Thaskil shook the awe in the man’s eyes away. “I wasn’t alone against the horde, despite what stories are floating around. Apula stood thanks to a mix of luck and fury.”

  The man smiled, although it carried all the warmth of a corpse’s leer. “About the best two things to have on your side in a battle.” The man placed the shaking roll of tabac back into his mouth and sucked the ember bright.

  “My hand shakes too,” Thaskil said, stretching up from his hunkers.

  Mikell stood weakly.

  “I was told by an old soldier that I need to exercise my breathing when I feel the fear coming on. When it starts right here.” Thaskil pointed to his stomach. “I close my eyes, and draw a breath in slowly though my nose. I hold it in my chest, and try to slow my heart down. I let it go from my mouth, and imagine it drawing out the fear with it. I repeat that until my heart slows, and I feel calm again. Can you try that, Mikell?”

  The man began to nod and he placed the roll into his mouth before executing a salute. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Thaskil returned the salute and stepped away, patting Mikell on the shoulder as he passed. He walked several more feet down the ruined street and found a soldier sat on the ground cross-legged, his head in his hands. “Soldier, are you well?”

  Thaskil returned the smiles and nods from the men he had trained as he ascended the steps to the upper battlement. Oil lamps and braziers cast a warm amber glow about the tired faces, and glinted off the edges of the weapons they sharpened. The smell of burned meat clung to the battlement, and as he cleared the last of the steps up onto the upper battlement, Thaskil saw the glow from the pyre on the outer side of the western wall. Black smoke billowed up into the faint light of morning. He felt the fury begin to boil in him as he leaned over the parapet and saw the three piles of bodies burning between the walls and the docks.

  “Who ordered these bodies burned here?” he shouted. “Who?” The sound of blood rushed in great washes in his ears as the anger spread through him. The leather of his gloves creaked across his flexing knuckles. “Who?”

  “It was I.” A voice sounded behind him.

  Thaskil turned and saw Lucius approach him, tucking his gloves into his belt.

  The former commander of the Hardalen garrison wore an expression of amused confusion. “Forgive me, Captain. I can see you are vexed, but I cannot understand why.”

  Thaskil screwed up his face and shook his head. “You can’t see why? Not being able to see is the issue here. You can’t see a fucking thing thanks to that wall of smoke!” He pointed over the parapet to the billowing blackness that obscured the view west, and into the outer reaches of the docks.

  Lucius looked out at the smoke, the arrogance sliding from his face like shit down a wet stone. His mouth sagged open just a fraction, and his eyes closed. A bare hand, fingernails dirty with dried blood, travelled up and rubbed at his forehead.

  Thaskil stepped up close to Lucius, their noses almost touching until the older man took a step backwards, his eyes betraying his fear. “You realise now, don’t you? You silly bastard.” Thaskil’s voice was a low rasp. “You’ve given them the perfect cover. If I didn’t already know you for the incompetent fucking idiot you are, I’d have the notion that this was by design.”

  “Now wait a moment.” Lucius coughed out the words as his lips trembled from the rebuke. “You can’t speak to me like that. I’m your superior officer.”

  Thaskil grinned and grabbed Lucius tight around the back of his neck, drawing his face in close to his. “I am in command of this wall, and on this wall you do as I say, or you will dangle from it.” Thaskil could feel his breath radiating off Lucius’ face as the older man winced at the force of his grip.

  “We cannot afford disease, so I thought–”

  “Thinking is something you didn’t do.” Thaskil shoved the man back, releasing his grip. “I don’t care how you do it, but I want those fires doused. Now!”

  Lucius nodded and looked about him as the faces on the battlement watched.

  Something in the space behind the smoke snapped, a loud noise like a falling tree. Thaskil turned his head towards the smoke in time to hear another of the loud noises, then another.

  “Get down!” Thaskil roared. Three more of the loud noises sounded. Onagers. I thought we got them all.

  The ball of fire burst through the smoke, swirling the black cloud about it, and smashed into the wall just beneath the parapet with a crash. Thick oil spread up and over the parapet in spreading tendrils of flame, coating soldiers and setting them ablaze. Two more crashed into the wall. One burning man ran blindly towards the inner wall of the parapet, smacking into it at belly height and tumbling right over. High-pitched screams pierced the chorus of alarm, cutting off as the burning defenders died.

  Another of the fireballs flew overhead and into the ruined section of the inner western walls. It crashed down amongst the burned-out buildings and sprung a flash of light up into the morning sky.

  The next fireball smashed into the parapet, showering the battlement in flaming oil, coating soldiers. Screams rose again. Rose, and fell.

  Thaskil looked up from his prone position on the battlement and saw Lucius. “Make this right!” he shouted over the din. “You make sure to make this right.” He scrambled to his feet and pulled his sword from its scabbard with one hand, unclipping his hatchet from his belt with the other. “They’re reloading,” he shouted. “Be ready!”

  Jerath took his hands from over his head and looked up from where he had landed. Roland ran, sheathed in flames. He ran into the inner parapet wall and fell down to the next level screaming. A symphony of fear and pain sounded all around him. He felt warm around his belly and legs and realised he’d pissed himself. Another crash sounded to his right and the light of early morning flared as the fire oil burned. More screaming.

  “Be ready!” the young captain roared to his left.

  Jerath tried to push himself to his feet, but fear had him tethered to the battlement. Low and safe. Stay low. Stay safe. He covered his ears with his hands and tried to muffle the terrible cries of the maimed.

  “Are you hurt?” A voice sounded above him. “If you’re not hurt, stand.”

  Jerath lifted his head and saw the young captain leaning over him.

  “Stand.” The captain grabbed a handful of the back of Jerath’s surcoat.

  Jerath scrambled to his feet as the captain hauled him up.

  The young captain looked at the wetness around Jerath’s trousers. “Forget it. We all piss ourselves. What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Jerath, sir.”

  “Be ready, Jerath. Hold your ground.” The captain’s eyes glinted with a hardness. He hel
d Jerath’s stare for a moment, seeming unconcerned by the tears welling in them. He walked off and hauled another soldier up and to his feet.

  Jerath watched as the young captain went, picking up soldier after soldier, stepping around the burning corpses. Jerath grabbed his knees and vomited up what little was in his belly. He coughed out the last of his bile and tears fell into the thin puddle between his feet. Oh, Jannie, I hope you made it out of the city. Please, Dajda, have her safely gone.

  The thump of the war machines on the other side of the wall sounded again. Thump, thump, and Jareth was on his belly again. He rolled beneath the inner wall of the parapet and curled into a ball. Jaws clenched. Teeth bared. Spit squeezing through the gaps in his teeth as he shook. Thump, thump, thump, thump. The crash of impact sounded once, twice, all around. Light flared before his shut eyes. Heat blasted around him like a hot wind. Jerath opened his eyes to see traces of light streak above. A baneful whistle sounded as the projectiles smashed into the western quarter of Carte, spreading fire and death.

  Thaskil hauled another to his feet and gripped the man’s fist in his. “Put steel in this, and point it out there.” He turned the man’s hand to the outer parapet. “Point it out there, and stick anything that tries to come over this wall. You hear me?” The man nodded, slow at first, then he seemed to awaken from a dream. Awaken from a nightmare, into a nightmare.

  “Sir.” The man nodded, and bent down to pick up the axe he must have dropped when the first projectiles had hit the wall.

  Thaskil walked on, shouting encouragement to the soldiers on the wall. He saw a soldier on one knee, and hunkered down beside them. “Are you hurt?”

  The soldier looked up at him. One side of her face was unharmed. Young and beautiful. The other was streaked with bright blood. Grey fragments of clay shrapnel stuck from the cheek and jaw of the other side of her face. She wiped at the blood that had gathered in her eye and peered at him with hard green eyes. “A few scratches,” she said, grinning with bloody teeth before wincing.

  “They don’t look too deep. Let me help you,” Thaskil said.

  “No,” she snapped, swatting his hand away. “Sorry,” she mumbled as Thaskil pulled back his hand. “I can manage.” Her trembling fingers ghosted over the injured side of her face. With deft movements, she pulled the fragments of the clay pot cast by the Cannans from her skin. Bright blood flowed from the gouges.

  “Here.” Thaskil unclipped a small skin from the side of his belt. “It’s whisky. It’ll clean the wound.”

  The soldier narrowed her eyes, wincing as she removed another of the larger fragments from the side of her jaw. She worked at a smaller piece, tossed it aside and nodded to him.

  “Tip your head back.”

  She did as he said, and hissed air in through her teeth as the golden liquid washed over her face and into her wounds, streaking pink and running down her neck and inside her cuirass.

  Thaskil lifted the skin and handed it to her. “Drink the rest of it.”

  She took the skin and tipped it back, sucking the whisky from it, her green eyes locked on his as she drank. “Thanks,” she said as she handed the skin back to him.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Callie.”

  “If you want to get that dressed, you should go–”

  Thump, thump. The war machines sounded outside the walls.

  “Get down!” He grabbed Callie’s shoulder as he dived to the flagstones, then saw a flash of light, a wind of heat, and a flare of pain. There was blackness and silence. Then screaming. All the screaming. Then silence once more. And black.

  Forty-One

  You Take The High Road, And I'll Take The Low Road

  They split the party at the head of the valley. Kalfinar set off with Bergnon, Ferdus, Harvind, and three of the remaining five of his Maracost.

  Kalfinar and his group skirted the ridgeline of the mountains encircling the Hagra Iolach valley, eventually climbing onto the cliff face. They descended in a diagonal, with the aim of climbing down until they were able to access the keep carved into the cliff.

  Broden and his group had donned the garb of the ambushed Raven Man scouts, and travelled across the valley to gain entry to Hagra Iolach by subterfuge. Alongside Kalfinar's cousin were the two remaining Maracost of Harvind’s party, as well as Valus, Jukster, Murtagh, Ruah and Halpern. Once the sun had fully set, Broden and his group were to make their way to the entrance to the walls of Hagra Iolach. If all had gone to plan, Kalfinar and the climbing party would have made their descent off the cliff face by then, and dropped down into the upper levels of the keep.

  A gust of icy wind rushed up the cliff face and swirled Kalfinar’s hair about his face. He hugged the rock wall, cheek pressed into the frozen moss that clung stubbornly to a ragged crevice. As the wind buffeted him, he couldn’t help but notice the hundreds of miniature star-headed flowers of a deep purple. About the moss, several tiny white spiders worked at their fine webs, catching the evening sun in their silk and setting a sparkle within the clinging drops of dew. Such small and simple a life can exist in even the most harsh of environments. He marvelled at the shrunken world a short while longer, and when the wind reduced, he looked beneath him, and for the next step down.

  Harvind and his Maracost led the climb, carefully showing the route to the others. Kalfinar followed, with Ferdus and Bergnon to the rear of the climbing party. Working their way across the face in a diagonal allowed for a steadier descent, with less chance of taking one of the group off the wall with a loose rock. Despite that concern, the stone was good, being worn and fractured by the constant wind and the freeze thaw of moisture. Any loose stone appeared to be of the smaller variety, leaving solid foot and hand holds.

  Kalfinar carefully put the edge of his boot onto the hold, being careful to scrape away any small debris before putting his weight down. His fingertips clamped hard on the line of rock above him. He fixed the thumb on his left hand down over the index finger and pressed, tightening his grip. The stump of his little finger itched and ached like a bastard, and he had to fight to keep his focus away from its nagging. With feet and hand secured, he released the grip of his right hand, and sought purchase lower down. He bent his legs, straightened his gripping left arm, and lowered his face as he sought his right hand hold. He touched his fingertips into the grey, chalky dust and rubbed them together, soaking up the sweat on his fingers. He slotted his fingers into the crevice.

  A mouse dashed out of the crack in the rock, across his hand, and squeezed itself into a tiny hole. Only the instinct to keep gripping prevented Kalfinar from falling. A nervous shock ran from his shoulders and tingled at his fingertips – those that remained. He squeezed himself tight to the face of the rock, cheek pressed against the icy cold stone, and laughed. Keep it together, man. Don’t lose your head now.

  “Kal,” Bergnon called from the climbing position behind Ferdus, “you all right?”

  Kalfinar turned his head, pressing his other cheek against the rock. “Watch out for the mice in the stone. One ran out and damn near had me dropped.”

  “Mice?” Bergnon said. “What in the frozen hells is a mouse doing–”

  Stone ground under Ferdus’ boot and he fell from his grip on the wall. The toes of his boots hung in front of Kalfinar’s face. Kalfinar looked up the man’s legs and chest, towards his face. Ferdus was staring up at Bergnon, his left arm held in a solid grip by Bergnon.

  Bergnon’s face strained, his teeth gritted and his eyes squeezed tight as his left arm stretched from its grip. His hand was wedged into a crack, wedged in a fist and locking the grip as bright blood ran out from the meeting of flesh and stone, and down his wrist. “Got you.” He strained. “Hold on.” Even in the fading light, the reddening of his face was clear, contrasting with the paling face of Ferdus.

  “Swing him onto the rock,” Kalfinar said. “Ferdus, spot your grip, and make it.”

  Bergnon strained, and his right arm tensed, shoulder popping fro
m the strain as another gust of wind blew hard up the face of the rock towards them. Bergnon’s hair swayed up in the rising air, and he grunted as he heaved Ferdus onto the rock.

  The Gerloup man crashed into the stone and grabbed hold of the ledge before his face, feet finding purchase on the same line of rock Kalfinar’s hands gripped. Ferdus heaved several deep breaths in, his face towards Kalfinar and eyes squeezed shut as sweat ran down the side of his head. He turned his head to Bergnon, and nodded.

  Kalfinar looked at the man a moment. Here to avenge the death of his nephew, and rescued from his own death by the very man who saw the lad betrayed to his murder. Dajda, if you play any hand in this, you have a cruel eye for us mortals.

  “Keep moving,” Harvind’s voice hissed up the cliff face and through the whistle of the wind. “Sun’s nearly gone. The others will be setting off across the valley now. Come.”

  Kalfinar turned around and looked back down the diagonal line they were taking towards the keep. He saw the lamps lit along the wall of the fortress. He was close. So close.

  The last light of the setting sun speared between the ragged peaks and across the valley, bathing the great cliff face above the fortress in a red light. Ruah strained her eyes to see any sign of Kalfinar and the climbing party, but it was too far, too large, and the climbers too small. She looked back down to the valley floor they travelled along, minding her feet as she picked her way across the oddly warm, rock-strewn ground. Clumps of mosses and lichen grew on grey and black stone. Mustard-yellow deposits of fine sand dotted the ground, marking out the fire-holes she had spotted that morning. Stinking sulphurous steam rose from them, wafting clouds of choking mist about them.

  She looked down at the uniform she wore, if it could even be called that. The scouts had been wearing outfits cut entirely from the white-bleached hide of deer. The principle garment was a long parka coat, pulled over the head and reaching down below Ruah’s knees. White hair plumed out and around the neck and inside the hood, pulled tight over her face. The rest of the coat was hair lined, with additional panels of hide sown outwardly over the shoulders and across the lower portions around the groin and backside. The central panel of leather had seen a sword punched through it, and try as she might, Ruah couldn’t remove all of the blood staining the garment. She had cut a section of one of the scout's trousers free, and with the help of Harvind, using a bone needle and some dried gut, she set about repairing the coat. The stitched panel obscured much of the blood stain, but it did nothing for the smell. The scout had been gut struck, that much was clear from the position of the hole in the coat. What was also clear was that the sword had torn the man’s bowels open, and so the garment now stank of shit. She wasn’t alone in such a misfortune.