Hondo jerked his head to the ropes that had been brought up for the last refugees. Deeds sighed. Every time he made an objection, it was countered.
‘Pull them back up as soon as we are down,’ Elias said. He was already uncoiling one and as Deeds watched, he dropped a mass of loops over the edge and began climbing down.
‘Nancy?’ Lady Sallet said. ‘They are going to try and kill the king. I know I can’t …’
‘I’m going with them,’ Nancy said.
She followed Elias on his rope, with Taeshin behind her. Deeds looked over as Bosin threw down another and clambered after it, with the rope wrapped around the armoured arm of the Patchwork suit.
‘I liked Tellius,’ Deeds said. ‘The city will be poorer without him.’
He saw her eyes harden.
‘Yes. Yes it will. Now go, Master Deeds. Pay your debts.’
He blinked at that and wondered how much she knew. As he climbed down, he suspected it was probably all of it.
Only Basker still stood there. He looked apologetically at Lady Sallet.
‘I can’t climb down that rope, my lady. Maybe twenty years ago. Not now.’
‘Then remain on the wall, sir! As long as you can, until you have done all you can. Given all you can. That is all that matters. Do you understand?’
Her voice trembled at the end. With the others gone, he saw she had let her grief return. Or perhaps she was just no longer able to hold it in. Basker turned away to give her what privacy he could. He heard her weeping and gave up on that. He had daughters and he knew what to do. When he turned back and opened his arms, she fell against him and sobbed her heart out, just a girl again.
The army clustering like blackflies against the walls of Darien had not expected to come under attack. Elias grinned as he landed on turf. As a hunter, he knew well that the best time to take prey was actually not in the dark, nor in daylight, but in the hour between, when the eye of man is confused in greys and shadows. He killed his first soldier within moments of reaching the ground, clearing a space for the others.
They came down one by one and the ropes vanished like snakes writhing back up the wall.
‘Slow and silent,’ Elias told them. He reached as he spoke and he was already turning to a shadowy soldier running at them when Deeds shot the man in the head. The sound seemed especially loud against the walls and the entire army of Féal seemed to become aware of them in the same moment.
‘Damn it, Deeds,’ Elias said.
There was no time for anything else. He felt the wash of heat and the grey light became full day as Nancy threw out threads. Elias reached hard and strode forward with his little knife held to cut throats. At his side, Hondo and Taeshin took station, guarding his flanks. Within a few steps, Bosin went ahead of them, with one green sword and another steel blade of Shiang.
They moved away from the walls like a thresher, through a close-pressed enemy, leaving a trail of dead. There was still surprise enough, in that no one in the army of Féal knew what was going on, or believed they could possibly be under attack in the moment of their victory. The city gates had been blown in! Most of them were still howling their delight, clashing shields and swords.
Yet something was wrong. Somewhere close by, men were yelling, screams were cut off – and a green figure trampled them down. The six of them came out in a spearpoint and Elias killed and killed as they went. It was not long before he and Bosin were mired in blood and filth. Of course, Hondo remained somehow clean, as if even death could not touch the sword saint of Darien.
Hondo blinked at the thought. That was what he was. He had joked with Tellius that the city school would one day produce a sword saint, but Darien already had one. Him.
It felt like a revelation, rising like the sun that peeked over the horizon in the east and cast gold across the army of Féal. Hondo just hoped he would live long enough to tell Bosin.
The light brought a more concerted response. The Féal horsemen were armoured and ruthless enough to ride down their own ranks to face whatever enemy was cutting a trail from the walls towards King Jean Brieland. As dawn grew clearer, enough soldiers pulled out of their way to allow a rank of heavy cavalry to reach a decent canter, heading into the centre.
Elias knew he could not stand against a mass of iron and horseflesh. He was grateful when Bosin peeled off to face them, spreading his arms wide and rushing suddenly terrified horses.
Elias pressed on between Taeshin and Hondo. He could still hardly believe the level of their skill. He was not certain he could survive a bout with either of them, but the one they called the sword saint seemed to move like a ghost, though he had to be older than Elias by a dozen years or more.
To the sides, Deeds kept up a withering barrage of gunfire against anyone who raised gun or weapon. He was extraordinarily accurate, as Elias knew very well, though the army had woken up to them and the protection of Bosin’s armour was some way behind. Elias knew there was only so long they could keep going, before surprise was choked off and they were surrounded and cut down.
Bosin caught up with them, looking battered. He had lost his green sword against the cavalry line and one of his legs kept flashing grey, so that he had to drag it for a few steps. Yet Elias was grateful for his presence.
Without warning, they broke through a line of heavily armoured men to open ground. Elias jammed his little knife into an armpit and pushed another warrior into Hondo’s path, where he was instantly cut down.
The sun was still rising and Elias found himself facing the dumbfounded figures of the king’s mounted personal guard. In their midst was King Jean Brieland of Féal. The man made a flicking gesture with his fingers and two of his beetle creatures leaped forward, but not at Elias. They went for Bosin and he grunted as he caught them and began to twist.
Elias did not hesitate. As the king’s guards spurred their mounts to ride at him, he slipped through the spaces between. The king drew an ornate sword and swung it, but Elias leaned aside and pulled the man off his horse in a crash of armour. He punched him then, over and over, then knelt on his chest, a king who threatened his daughters … and his city. Elias felt the beat of it, deep in him. Darien had been a distant place once, but he had fought and bled for it. He had earned the right to call her his own.
He felt something touch his hand, like the whisper of wings, or the silken creep of a wasp. Elias was too used to sitting still in bracken and fern to react sharply, but he could not help glancing over. He saw nothing, but he felt the skin tighten and constrict, the stinging touch moving higher. He blinked as he felt the sensation reach his shoulder and chest. It felt sickeningly intimate. Even as the king looked up at him, he wanted to jump up and take off his shirt.
A cold hand gripped his throat, exactly the sensation of strong, chill fingers on his skin. He swallowed, understanding that it was some magical thing. Elias shifted his knee to the king’s arm and brought his little knife up as something squeezed him and he found he could no longer breathe.
I have him, my love.
King Jean Brieland was staring up at Elias. He tried to say something, but even as Elias choked and began to go purple, he still brought down his blade. He jammed his knife into the king’s throat and made sure he would not rise again.
There was no air to be had. Elias felt his vision darkening and he tried not to panic, though he knew everyone did in the end. He did not see Nancy coming closer, though the world spun gold around her and, in the light of the Canis Stone, all shadows were made rags. Elias heard something shriek in despair and pain – and then he was gasping and coughing, more grateful for air and life than he had ever been.
Exhaustion came like a wave then. Elias stood, swaying. The army was still roaring in and even in that place of flickering light, though Bosin stamped and Hondo moved like a wraith, he knew they would not get out. Even Nancy would be overwhelmed in the end, though he thought she might make floating cinders of half that army before they brought her down.
He heard Deeds
curse as his guns clicked empty. Elias dipped his head and looked down on the man who had brought so much misery. It was easy to see the face of the prince in his father.
Elias looked up. Tellius had chosen him as leader of their little group. Perhaps for this.
‘In the name of the king, I command you to lay down your arms!’ he bellowed. The volume and certainty of it shocked some of those around him out of their battle rage. One of the king’s generals had been unhorsed in the chaos. He took a step away from the strangers who had walked right into the camp. The man’s face was coldly furious.
‘He isn’t saying a word, you murdering …’
‘Not this dead man. His son,’ Elias said. ‘The new king.’
He felt Hondo and Taeshin turn to him and shrugged.
‘There is always more than one plan,’ Elias said. He turned back to the officer.
‘If you kill us now, it will be against the orders of the heir, Louis. At least hear what he has to say before you continue. King Jean Brieland is dead. Long live his son. And blow retreat, lad. I do not want to have to kill you, or anyone else today. Pull the army back from the walls of the city.’
He rose up from the dead body of Jean Brieland to address the king’s officer.
‘What is your name?’ Elias asked.
The man could not seem to look away from the blood that spattered his chest and throat. Elias reached out and broke his trance with a tap on the chest.
‘General Petraeus, sir,’ he said, automatically.
‘The king is dead, General Petraeus. His son commands you to stand down.’
‘I can’t … take your word for that,’ the man replied through clenched teeth.
‘Then give me till noon. Pull your army back and wait. We’ll keep the gate open. Before noon, you’ll have word from King Louis.’
‘He lives, then?’ the general asked.
Elias nodded.
‘I’m glad. I heard …’ The man made a decision. ‘Very well. If I don’t hear by noon, we will attack. Give me your word you will not reinforce the walls and gates in the meantime.’
‘You have my word,’ Elias said immediately. ‘Anyway, it would hardly be fair.’
He felt giddy and chuckled, surprising the man. Elias turned his back on him then, looking to the city. Up on the walls and around the broken gate, Elias could still hear the clash and cries of fighting. He and the others had come barely two hundred paces, though it had seemed longer.
‘Blow retreat, general,’ Elias said. ‘Or go against the command of your own king.’
As Elias walked back, Nancy and Deeds fell in beside him. Bosin joined them, though his leg dragged and he was exhausted and slow. Taeshin and Hondo brought up the rear – and ahead of them, the ranks of Féal parted like the sea. The soldiers did so in confusion and visible anger, but the horns began to sound and the army blew retreat.
‘Six of us,’ Deeds said. ‘None like us.’
26
Patient
Prince Louis looked up at the sound of footsteps. He felt his heart pound faster at the thought that they had finally come for him. One of the nurses had told him his father was attacking the city the night before. She had glared at him like it was his fault, while the truth was his stomach had tied itself into knots of fear at the news. He did not know what he hoped for in those moments of indecision. He watched the door handle turn and imagined his father entering the room and sitting on the bed. Fear uncoiled in his stomach.
Lady Sallet entered. He knew her from the council meetings and his mind raced with implications. She rustled as she moved, filling the room with whispering. Without a word, she closed the door and settled herself on a chair by his bed. He tried to frown at her with one good eye, but he was too desperate for news.
‘Your father is dead,’ she said. ‘He fell on the field of battle, attacking this city. His army waits for word that you are alive. You are his heir?’
He nodded, mute. It was too much to take in.
‘Then in this moment, though you are yet uncrowned, you are the king of Féal, Your Majesty.’
He narrowed his eye in suspicion.
‘Where is Tellius? I would like to hear from the Master Speaker.’
Her expression tightened as he spoke and her eyes grew cold.
‘He died in defence of the city. No one could have done more.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘He … I’m sorry.’
‘Yes,’ she said, taking a moment to arrange the green skirts. He could see pockets sewn into them as she smoothed the material with her palms. ‘There will be a funeral. Perhaps you will attend, as representative of your nation. Yet you present a problem to me, Your Majesty. A problem I can resolve in a number of ways.’
‘Most of which involve my death, Lady Sallet. I understand. Does my father’s army wait under a flag of truce? Is that why you have come to me?’
‘It does. And it is your army now, Your Majesty, not your father’s.’
He sighed. She did not know him, nor how his view of the world had changed. His father had taken an eye. At that moment, his main feeling on hearing the man was dead was just relief he would never see him again.
‘So you are considering whether I should be allowed to leave, or whether it would be better to kill me.’
‘You are perceptive,’ she said softly.
He inclined his head, accepting the compliment.
‘I don’t know how I can convince you. If you let me return to my army, I will take them home, to rebuild, to trade. I will not return here.’
‘Perhaps. Or perhaps we will see your son or grandson marching south once more.’
‘Well, I cannot speak for them!’ he snapped.
She raised an eyebrow and he coloured.
‘My point, Your Majesty, was that if you leave as a beaten enemy, peace will always be fragile. My wish is to continue our trading agreement, exactly as you had it before.’
‘The new Lord Canis will vote against it,’ he said. He had the grace to blush deeper as she looked at him.
‘But …’ She hesitated and thought of Tellius. Yes. She would take a risk. ‘But I will not. I will vote for trade and peace. It has come to my attention that the world is wider than these walls. Either way, I have had enough of war, Your Majesty. Though I would remind you that we won. Darien was breached, but your father was far from victory.’
He nodded slowly, accepting her terms.
‘I will need to have something signed and sealed in your name, of course, as king,’ she said. ‘And you must be seen by your generals. I will have something suitable found for you to wear.’
‘Will you let me take the body of my father?’ he said.
She saw how tears blurred his vision. Love was a strange and twisted thing, Louis realised. He had been afraid of his father all his life. He had hated him more times than he could remember, with a dull forge-heat. Yet the thought of King Jean Brieland being humiliated in death was still unbearable. Louis realised he wanted to see the body, needed to see it. To say goodbye.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He is yours, Your Majesty.’
‘Please. Call me Louis, Lady Sallet.’
‘Then he is yours, Louis. As Tellius is mine.’
She left him then and a dozen servants bustled in her wake to shave and wash and dress him, making him fit to be seen. He wondered which of them would have killed him if he had refused her offer.
When Louis went out beyond the walls at last, it was with fresh bandages and a black silk patch sewn for his missing eye. His army cheered him, waving weapons and banners. He acknowledged them from the back of a grey gelding, weak and pale, sweating from the exertion. Yet he lived.
He wept when he saw his father, cold and still upon a bier. Jean Brieland lay before the walls of Darien and they still stood. The spring sun was at noon and it looked as if it would not move again.
1
Risk
He was a hunter, Elias Post, a good one. The village elders spoke o
f his skills with enormous pride, as if they owned some part of his talents. The people of Wyburn looked to him to bring them meat, even in the darkest months of winter when other places lost their old and young.
The land around them was exhausted, though they still worked it hard, forcing some small crop from each scrub field, guarding slow-growing things from crows and ravenous pigeons. Sheep still roamed the bare hills. Doves pecked and glared in their boxes. Bees drowsed in lines of hives. It might have been enough to feed them all if some of the woods had not been burned and sown to grow oilseed for the city, earning silver over food. Elias did not know the rights and wrongs of those choices. When the grain store was down to a crust of years past, when the warrens were trapped out and empty, thin-fingered hunger crept into the village, peering in at old men as they rocked by the fire.
He’d gone out first when he’d been a boy, coming back to his mother in triumph with ducks clutched together or hares all tucked up under his belt like a skirt of grey fur. There was an abundance in the summers, but it was in the deep winter where Elias earned the praise of the village council. When the frost came down and the world was white and silent, he had been a sure source of venison and partridge, hares–even wolf or bear if the snows were deep. He drew his line at fox, though he trapped them to let the hares thrive. The meat was foul-tasting and he could not bear the smell.
As he reached forty, he’d been offered a place on the village council himself. He took pride in attending the meetings on the first day of each month. Along with his skills, there was an authority in him that grew each year, like a cloak he was made to wear whether he wanted to or not. He did not speak often–and then only when he knew the subject well enough to be sure of his judgement.
The one source of disagreement was his refusal to take an apprentice, but even then they knew his son would follow him when the boy was grown. What did it matter if Elias preferred to teach his craft to his own kin? There were always some who grumbled when every other hunter went into the forests and returned thin and empty-handed, with frost on their beards. Elias would come in then, hunched and bowed by the weight of a carcass draped over his shoulders, all black with frozen blood. He did not laugh or boast to the other hunters, though some still hated him even so. They were proud men themselves and they did not like to be shamed in front of their families, no matter how he shared the meat, in exchange for other goods or coin. They held their peace, for they were not fools and the village needed Elias Post more than the other hunters. No one wanted to be cast out, to have to go to the city for work. There were no good endings there, everyone knew that. When young girls ran off to Darien, their parents even held a simple funeral, knowing it was much the same. Perhaps to warn the other girls, too.
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