The Sword Saint

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘Has this city ever fallen?’ Tellius asked softly. There were other ears around them on that wall, with men waiting on the steps. Tellius thought he could smell metal and oil on the breeze as it blew from the north.

  ‘The old Empire of Salt fell,’ Arthur said at last. ‘The last Salt king died without heirs and his cities split apart in suspicion. Darien, too, though it was not a capital then, but a city far from the centres of power. Now we stand on walls as great as any I have ever known.’

  The boy-king shrugged expressively, looking back with a perspective that made Tellius shiver. When they had met, Arthur had been living like an animal on the streets, pretending to be a mute. Battered and made wary by experience, he had expected only cruelty. Yet he had been made for an empress.

  ‘Empires come and go, Tellius,’ the boy-king said, with sadness underlying. ‘Those who rule them forget to protect old freedoms, or spend the army payroll silver on palaces. Or become afraid of the rough soldiers on their walls and send them away. Kings are just men – and men make mistakes they sometimes live to regret.’

  Tellius smiled tightly at the echo to his own thoughts. He did not point out the obvious, that at least one king was a golem. Presumably, for all his strange origins, Arthur was no more infallible than anyone else.

  ‘I don’t want to see Darien fall,’ Tellius said under his breath as he looked out. ‘It has meant too much to me. She has meant too much to me. Whatever she was, she is my capital now.’

  In that moment, it was not clear if he meant the city or Lady Sallet. He did not need to say how it was to find love, long after he had ceased to search for it. He was not sure Arthur would truly have understood. The boy-king knew loss and grief, though perhaps the length of his life blurred such things and smoothed them down, made ripples instead of jagged edges.

  ‘It hurts to find a pleasant spot – and then see it lost,’ Arthur said. ‘I remember gardens, Tellius, that are untended briars now, or even forests, with huge oaks where I once played. Or city walls built over paths I walked.’ He shrugged. ‘Only mountains stay the same. Men and women change the world around them.’ The boy paused again, weighing his words. ‘For good or bad, but I think mostly for good. There are ruins of an older world wherever they dig a deep foundation, did you know that? Old coins and walls and pieces of painted tile. I have seen statues taken from the earth when we rebuilt the walls. Half-faces, or a single arm in white stone. The past lies beneath our feet, Tellius. We stand like gods over them.’

  ‘And one day someone will stand like gods over us.’

  ‘They will. The strange thing is that you would like to kill them.’

  Tellius grinned.

  ‘I would. I really would.’

  ‘You are not a philosopher, Master Speaker,’ the king said.

  ‘No. I am a war leader. I am a loyal man of Darien.’

  ‘Not of Shiang?’

  ‘I have said what I am,’ Tellius replied.

  The wind strengthened. In the evenings, it sometimes rose up as it struck the walls, rushing like a wave over rock. Tellius shook his head at the thought, imagining the army coming. The king of Féal was arrogant and enraged. Part of the reason he marched was because the people of Darien had not thrown themselves to their stomachs, shrieking at the mention of his name. King Jean Brieland was apparently a man who thought the whole world should kneel. Tellius hoped they could bleed his ambition weak against those walls. He might learn a little humility in Darien. Most men did.

  Tellius considered the information Elias had won, staggering with weariness as he came in. Hondo had confirmed it. Yet a king who could not be cut did not trouble Elias particularly. Such a man could be sealed in a box and buried, or crushed under stone he could not lift, and simply left. Or set on fire, perhaps. There were a hundred ways and Tellius knew he was ingenious. He was more worried about the armoured black warriors Nancy had described. If they were anything like the Sallet Greens, the thought of hundreds of them was terrifying.

  In the distance, Tellius saw blurred movement, the entire horizon shift and lurch. He felt the skin of his face grow tight, but he smiled and bowed to the boy-king standing at his side.

  ‘Your eyes are better than mine, Your Majesty. If it please you, can you tell me what you see?’

  ‘I see a great host, Master Speaker,’ the king replied. ‘With banners and formations and horses, mile upon mile of them. More men than I have ever seen before.’

  Tellius blinked at that, considering the source.

  ‘They will regret coming here,’ he said.

  The king of Darien nodded. Tellius looked over the wall and clenched his jaw at the sight of stragglers still coming in. They would be crushed against the walls, but he was out of time.

  ‘Blow the war horns. Let the city know they are here. And close the gates!’ he called to the officer watching him. The order was repeated three times, giving warning. Tellius heard cries of fear and desperation outside and he saw exhausted families lurch on, desperate to get in before the wave broke over them.

  The river was eerily quiet, with all the boatmen snug in taverns along the docks and merchant traders busy with war supplies in the warehouses. The twin water gates of Darien that cut the city across its southern half were an obvious weakness. A decade before, they had been closed off at night by moored pontoons and a single sleepy guard paid to spend the night on them, while all manner of smuggling had gone on. More than once, the pontoons had been set adrift for a lark, so the guard woke to find himself lodged on a mudbank miles downriver.

  Those sleepy years were long behind. Since then, the Twelve Families had taxed and spent fortunes to improve the water defences. The river was the lifeline of trade and its merchant captains brought fortunes to the treasury. Yet it broke the heart of engineers to see a shining breach in the walls on two sides, where the river ran through. It could not be enclosed, not with hundreds of boats passing through to the docks each day. Instead, huge double chains had been installed across the river, to be drawn up, encrusted and dripping from the riverbed as the war horns sounded. It took the labour of dozens of men to turn enormous capstans in the walls, with each step locked so they could not whirr back like a weapon. The weight of the chains was frightening, the very limit of what they could bear as the men strained to get them out of the thick mud. It was a little easier after that, until they came almost taut and barred entry to anything afloat. Each link was the size of a man and bore the mark of a guild master blacksmith.

  The walls that held the chains had been remade as a sheer drop into the water. No army could mass for an attack there, not while fire poured down from above and the quays inside. An entire gun regiment had been stationed to guard each water gate, both where the river entered and left the city. The old Foss river was drinking water to many of the poorest, and bathing for their children. It was a brackish, oily road for the merchants who brought salt and iron and coal from mines far away. With hearth and family, the river was not to be touched, not without an axe falling on the hand that dared.

  In the cold of evening, war horns sounded across Darien. The long brass tubes made a single, low note, like the drone of a bee. They rose in strength and volume, then fell away as each signaller ran out of air, took a breath and began again.

  The effect on the river gates was immediate, with red flags raised on the high point of the wall to signal shipping and capstan teams racing to their positions. In just moments, the men took the strain and began to force the machines round, step by step, wrenching the great chains from where they lay on the riverbed. The first part was an agony of straining, and the more experienced river captains knew it took time. It was not uncommon for the most daring to ignore the flags and keep going, risking their ships and cargoes to get in over the rising chain.

  On that night, there was more urgency in the air than the monthly drills over the previous few years. The warning horns meant a real attack and two ships made no attempt to drop sail and anchor for the night, as they wou
ld usually have done. Though the river gate was only wide enough for one, both captains kept their course and speed, yelling furiously to one another to give way as they came.

  The wall men sweated on the capstans, driven in a rolling chant by a gun captain so that they all heaved on the same beat. It was a song that had been created for this new labour and it kept them all in time, many with their heads bowed and eyes closed as they focused on raising the damned chains that were gripped by river mud and about as heavy as sin.

  The men cheered when the chains came free at last. The weight was still huge, but they could move forward, the capstan clicking as each step was locked with pegs hammered into holes in the wooden floor.

  Out on the river, the wind had been stolen from one of the ships by the other, so that it slid ahead and through the gate. They all winced at the sound of the rising chains scraping barnacles and slime off the hull, but the ship didn’t snag and the captain kept his rigging and masts, wiping sweat from his face as a thousand soldiers glared at his lucky escape.

  Outside the chains, the other man nearly rammed his ship into the bank. He’d left himself almost no room for manoeuvre and yet his speed had not been too great. He threw out both anchors and the soft hold of the mud slowed him until the bow rested against the huge chains. One or two of his crew even reached out to touch a link, knowing they’d never get another chance. The captain had enough style to remove his hat and bow to the men on the walls, then his crew set about raising the anchors and setting down a boat to tow them round and back to a wider part of the river for the night. The sun was setting and as they went, the captain leaned on the side and called to another ship still racing in.

  ‘The chain is up!’ he shouted across the strip of water between them.

  No one answered and he gave up, having tried to do a favour for a stranger. The other ship steered in silently on the current, though he could see no one up on the yards and only one figure on the tiller and another at the prow, guiding her. As they passed, one of the merchantman’s crew shouted out another warning, but the man at the tiller didn’t turn. The captain shrugged then. They’d see the fellows again when they were forced to come round and anchor. He sniffed the air, frowning at the smell of smoke that came to him on the breeze.

  It had been a mordant sort of wit to rename the little ship Vengeance, Denn Hallman thought sourly. The king’s captains had declared it a fine idea and painted the word on the bow before they’d disembarked out on the coast. ‘Are you not coming, then?’ he’d asked innocently. They’d scowled and told him to mind his damned business and to watch himself, and all manner of pointless, stupid threats that meant nothing at all. Denn’s wife and daughters would be freed if he did this. The king of Féal had given his word on it. That was all that mattered. Their threats and bluster were just wind.

  He had been a sailor in his youth, so it all came back to him soon enough, with a sort of yearning. He’d never have been able to handle even a small two-master on his own, of course, not on the open sea. Yet it wasn’t too hard to steer the old barge down the river, not with one other fellow calling out from the prow. He was a dark and surly lad, with a knife always in his hand, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. He hadn’t given a name and only sneered when Denn had volunteered his own and offered his hand. If there had been a chance of some fellow feeling, it had been clear it would not come from him. Denn had asked him a few questions, enough to discover he knew nothing about starboard and larboard, or points of the compass. Of course not, that would have been too much like common sense. With a sigh, Denn had told the lad to just point left or right, standing up tall on the prow so he could be seen on the stern. Beyond that, they’d not said a word. Denn thought the young man had the look of city slums about him, rather than a country boy, who tended to be healthier and better fed. He thought of him as ‘Snipe’, after a breed of urchins who’d terrorised him in his half-forgotten youth.

  As the walls of the city came into sight, there were just two ships ahead on the river. Denn felt his heart beat faster in fear. He couldn’t slow down. It was true there was an anchor lying on the deck, with coils of rope in neat loops alongside. He supposed he could leave the tiller and just throw the lot overboard, but his job was to steer the ship right up to the gate. In the distance, he heard low horns calling, closer and closer as the sound was taken up, growing in force and volume until he swore he could feel the vibration in the wooden tiller under his hand.

  Snipe had left his post, Denn saw. His heart sank and he felt suddenly dry-mouthed when he understood what that meant. He thought he could already smell smoke, though it might have been his imagination. No, there was a flicker down in the hold. He could see the light through the hatch that led below. Snipe was down there, lighting the damned ship on fire.

  Denn swallowed his horror, focusing on keeping a straight line. One of the ships had gone through ahead, while the other had launched a boat to be towed round. He craned to see if they would make it before he smashed into them. He fretted as the tiller shivered under his hand. Without eyes up on the prow, he was practically blind! Where was the little bastard?

  ‘I need directions!’ Denn roared. ‘Get up here! I’ll run us into the bank otherwise!’

  He could see a faint haze in the air now, smoke rising from the hold. He’d asked what was down there and the soldiers had just laughed and told him to mind his own business and do as he was told or they’d cut him. Fools. He knew very well.

  He saw Snipe coming up the rungs of the ladder from below almost at a run, so he seemed to rise from the deck like a vengeful spirit.

  ‘There you are!’ Denn bellowed. ‘Get to the prow and tell me if I’m heading straight, quickly!’

  The skinny little rat gaped at him, mouth opening and closing on an angry retort. Before Denn could speak again, the kid had clambered to the edge, taken one look at the dark waters below and dropped away. The splash was lost behind and Denn could only look after him in dull resignation. He knew what it meant.

  On the larboard or port side, the ship that had turned round passed by him. The captain yelled something, gesturing, but Denn Hallman was thinking of his wife and children. It had been a good marriage, pretty much. He’d certainly loved her and he’d saved a little for their old age. If someone had asked him, in his youth, if he’d give his life to save the young bride on his arm, he knew he would have said yes, without hesitation. This was just that. Of course, she’d be furious if she ever heard what he’d done. The thought made him laugh and weep at the same time.

  He staggered as his ship reached the chains. In the current, the ship hadn’t been moving at more than a man’s walking pace, but the prow still crumpled and timbers groaned and cracked, deep in the hold. He could hear rushing water and his heart leaped at the thought of the river extinguishing the fires beneath his feet. Smoke rose from every crack in the deck. He was wreathed in it as the barrels blew up beneath him. The explosion tore the boat and broke the chains in a crack of sound and light like the end of the world.

  22

  River Gate

  On the other side of the city, Tellius heard it. He and the king turned to see a ball of fire rising where the river met the city. He clenched his jaw. He had done all he could, he reminded himself. He was just one man, as Arthur had said.

  No. He was the war leader of Darien, appointed by the king and ratified by the Twelve Families. He would not let the people down. At his back, voices shrieked for the gates to open once more. Tellius felt overwhelmed, unable to think. He looked over the wall and saw a woman kneeling on the ground to face the city, holding her child up as if in offering. Behind her, a line of cavalry had ridden out ahead of the army of Féal. No doubt they could see the last of those stragglers and understood they were trapped.

  There was a certain kind of man who enjoyed helpless prey. No doubt some of them had found their way into the cavalry of the kingdom of Féal. Tellius could see them readying spears. Laughing young men, wanting to hunt. They
would risk their own lives just to terrify the people watching.

  ‘Guns and archers to the wall,’ Tellius ordered. ‘Stay low. Let them come close.’

  The tramp of soldiers was loud as they took their positions. Every gun foundry in the city had been churning out bullets night and day and he knew they still were. They were already short of brass and the black powder they used that had become, for him, the smell of war. Yet the archers had better range than pistols – and a better rate of fire, though the regiments still bickered over that. Barrels of fletched arrows were brought up all along the walls, thousands upon thousands, waiting to be sent down the throat of the king of Féal. On a high wall, they had range to beat anyone marching with a bow or a gun down there. That was an edge and Tellius knew he would need anything he could get.

  The explosion to the south nagged at him. He had regiments at the river gates, commanded by men he trusted. He could not be there to oversee that defence, not while the main army approached the northern wall. He shook his head in frustration. He had resources. There was no point holding the north if the army of Féal broke through somewhere else.

  With a low whistle, Tellius summoned one of the boys waiting to take his orders.

  ‘Donny? Go to the Red Inn and wake Master Hondo. Ask him if he would be so good as to report on whatever is happening at the entry river gate for me. He is to act as he sees fit, with the authority of the council –’ he glanced at Arthur and received a sharp nod – ‘and the king. Go.’

  The boy raced away. Tellius had chosen all the messengers from lads he had known years before, when he’d fed and protected a couple of dozen street children, with a little thieving on the side for funds. It had been a simpler life.

  ‘I think it is time for you to leave the walls, Your Majesty,’ Tellius said.