The Black Hawks

by David Wragg

  ‘You could have—’

  Rennic hushed him with a glare, then returned his gaze to where Palo stood in the dawn light. Chel went up on his tiptoes in an attempt to match.

  ‘… cannot risk alerting those within the citadel before we are ready to strike,’ Palo continued. ‘They must have no idea that the prince both lives and is at their threshold until it is too late to intercept him. Our subterfuge will keep them off-balance, rob them of the chance to run for answers to our enemy in his tower.’

  She moved around, drawing lines in the black earth that were lost to Chel through the thicket of legs. ‘The advance party will infiltrate the city by way of the Shanties, avoiding the checks at the Pauper’s Gate. The guards at the Widow’s Gate are unloved and easily bought.’ She scraped two more invisible grooves. ‘From there we must pass into the Cityheart via the Queen’s Gate. It is here we shall trigger the diversions we discussed. The confusion should allow the remaining force to enter the Newtown while the advance party attains the citadel gates. Here we shall reveal the prince, and then we shall have them.’

  She stood back with a grim smile. ‘Those at the citadel gates will be forced to assume that the prince’s arrival is Vassad’s wish. Only he and his inner circle will know otherwise, and once we are inside the citadel it will be too late. We need only a handful of agents to enter the keep, and but one to climb the tower. Vassad is blind to our approach. He is unprepared. One hand of our strike shall attend to the king, the other shall see to the Primarch. With the king secured and the Primarch in chains, we give the signal and dig in at the citadel. Before any red-robed churchman thinks to act rashly, the rest of our forces, the vast bulk of you that wait without the walls, take the city. We emerge from the tower, our nation’s rightful rule restored, and the Church will bow or be cast down as traitors. The people will hang them from the citadel walls.

  ‘Does each of us understand her role? Good. You two, remain. I have your alchemical devices.’

  The group dispersed, heading for mules and gear. Chel was surprised to see Tarfel had been front and centre of the briefing. He met Chel’s eye with a nervous smile.

  ‘Exciting, eh, Vedren?’ It was the first words they’d exchanged for some time, and Chel reflected on their renewed separation since they had encountered the Watcher: Tarfel was once again a confirmed prince, and Chel was once again his servant.

  ‘Yes, highness. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose. Wonderful to be with Mendel again. We’ve seen so little of each other since I was sent north. And of course he’s changed, we both have, and he’s had his injury, and the pressures of heirdom, and the alchemy of course, so some differences are to be expected …’

  ‘Of course, highness.’

  ‘You know, Vedren,’ the prince said, watching the preparations around them with nervous eyes, ‘the Watcher told me and Mendel the strangest tale last night. Remember Farashan, the first great siege of Father’s wars?’

  ‘Ah. Palo’s cousin?’

  The prince swallowed, recalling their dinner conversation, and nodded. ‘You remember that my mother Irja – she died birthing me, of course you knew – was married to said cousin, prior to the siege? The Watcher told us that they had a secret son, who escaped the executions that Palo mentioned, although at the expense of a terrible maiming. That would make him my half-brother, Vedren! Imagine! Apparently, he’s still out there somewhere. Father will know more. We can ask him once he’s safe.’

  Chel nodded and smiled, but his mind lingered on a maimed half-brother, and the blind man who’d told the princes his tale. There was more at play here than he’d been told, of that he was certain. He looked around for Torht, but his view was obscured by the marshalling forces that swirled around them. A small force to infiltrate, the rest to sweep in once the citadel was taken. Hammer and anvil. What could go wrong?

  ‘Our bargain still holds, doesn’t it, Vedren? Deliver me through what comes, and you’ll be released.’

  ‘That sounds … good, highness. Really good.’

  ‘Wonderful. We’d best away and prepare, Vedren. Today we rescue my father, and the kingdom with him!’

  THIRTY

  An odd, tingling feeling fluttered through Chel as he led Tarfel’s mule along the muddy road, a pace behind the mules bearing Mendel and Torht, who had Palo at the lead-rope. The riders were robed as Merciful Sisters, while Chel and the marchers were a mixture of apparent sisters and their fur-clad retainers. Unease, perhaps even dread, simmered within him, but also tremulous hope, the consideration that if the wheels turned the way the Watcher had schemed, the kingdom could be forever changed.

  So much had happened since he’d arrived at Denirnas with his step-uncle; by now, he’d wager none of his family had the first idea of what had become of him. Apart, perhaps from his sister …

  Mendel was cured: he seemed clearer, more vital by the day. If anything, their arrival at the capital had energized him; he seemed raring to breach the gates of Black Rock and free his father likewise. Chel’s stomach rose at the thought. Could an end to the desolation of their country be at hand?

  His gaze slipped back to Tarfel, who lacked his brother’s visible energy. If anything, the prince looked physically sick.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, highness?’

  Tarfel looked up, his eyes taking a moment to alight on Chel. ‘Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, Vedren. It’s all very, well, big, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, highness.’

  The prince lowered his voice. ‘Vedren, I’m scared. I’ve been so oblivious.’ He shook his head, sighed, then sat up straighter. ‘But Father needs me, and Mendel is brave enough for us both. We’re going to do it, Vedren. We’re going to save the kingdom.’

  ‘We are, highness.’

  On they trudged, down from the woods and on to the muddy road, while the bruised winter sky prickled with the promise of snow. They crossed the river at the new bridge, a low, jumbled construction of wood and uneven stone that squatted self-conscious in the shadow of the magnificent ruin upriver. Chel suspected that the bridge had creaked and juddered even when fresh-built. On the far bank, they entered the Shanties.

  However much the lean-to slums beyond the walls of Denirnas had shocked him, the Shanties were something else. They stretched for miles; from the fringes at the river bank, the city’s walls were a distant haze. Narrow trails and roads-by-convention criss-crossed them, riddled with shallow streams and channels of dirty water spanned by driftwood trestles, and Chel was grateful that someone else was responsible for their navigation.

  Dogs barked unseen, while lean alley cats watched their passage with the same casual indifference as the denizens they passed, hollow-eyed and hollow-backed folk who paused their daily activities to follow the clandestine procession with joyless eyes. Everywhere there was coughing, and the stench of disease suffused the air.

  ‘A sand-flower!’ At the cry his heart sank. The songs followed.

  ‘Where the Shepherd wandered, so the chosen came …’

  Rennic glanced over in irritation at the youthful chorus, his restored armour creaking beneath his matted furs. ‘What have you done, boy?’

  Chel’s own borrowed mail was cold and heavy as ever beneath his furs. He cast his gaze downward at the brittle mud crust beneath his boots. ‘Nothing. Kids.’

  ‘Adorable.’

  The songs and calls followed them as they trudged on.

  ‘Will you bring us luck, sand-flower?’

  ‘Yes, will you share your luck with us?’

  ‘Will we be princesses?’

  ‘Will we have fine dresses?’

  Chel kept his gaze low. ‘Let’s hope so,’ he said, only to himself. ‘That would make a pleasant change.’

  ***

  Squat, dark outer walls filled their view, piles of ugly grey stone from the northern quarries. The Shanties ended abruptly a couple of hundred paces from the walls, and with them went the children’s singing. A few hunched figures tried to f
ollow as they crossed the blasted ground, but were hissed back by the guards at the Widow’s Gate, their spears gripped tight at the sight of the approaching column, eyes narrowed in pre-emptive hostility.

  The liveried gate captain raised a hand as they approached. ‘No entry here, Sisters. You’ll need to go via the free way, Pauper’s Gate.’ She jerked a thumb around the curve of the walls toward a wide, clear path that travelled away downslope, carved through the Shanties like a scar. Scant traffic moved along it, picking its way around the charred and broken debris that littered it like the area before the wall. Rennic noticed Chel’s frown at the scorched, cracked earth.

  ‘Won’t let them build too close,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Burn them back if necessary.’

  ‘Not that I’d put my breakfast on you getting in there,’ the captain went on. ‘You’ll need to be quarantined now after crossing that mess.’ A nod toward the Shanties, which from here seemed to stew beneath a soggy film. ‘Any one of you could have been touched, and Shepherd save us from the Sickness within the walls. You’ll be in stockade for a good couple of weeks. King’s orders.’

  Mendel threw back his hood. Even in the wintry light, his silver band gleamed on his golden brow. ‘Is that so, captain? Perhaps I might ask my father himself.’ He presented a dazzling grin. Chel saw Torht put his head in his hands.

  The captain wobbled on her feet, eyes goggling, then dropped to one knee. She looked at serious risk of an aneurysm. ‘Your … your highness!’

  Mendel raised an airy hand. ‘My thanks, captain, we’ll take it from here. Have your men there crack the gate and let’s be away, shall we?’

  ‘But … But … the risk of plague, the quarantine … What if you were touched?’

  Mendel laughed, light and silvery, the utter confidence of the bold or highly stupid. ‘We are the righteous, captain, on a mission of mercy. The Shepherd wouldn’t let a divine mission suffer the ravages of white plague, eh?’ Chel wondered if he believed it.

  Torht and Palo exchanged urgent whispers, then Palo stepped toward the captain and her guards, who took half a step back themselves. ‘Your loyalty to your prince will be noted, and rewarded,’ she said, her gaze serious as ever. The stress on the word reward brought the captain back to her feet, and a moment later the Widow’s Gate creaked open wide enough to admit the mules.

  ‘You’re doing God’s work, my soldiers,’ Mendel called as he rocked past. ‘Tell your comrades, tell one and all: Prince Mendel has returned!’

  Palo held their gaze. ‘Tell nobody of this.’ She exchanged a quick look with Spider, then tugged on her mule’s rope and set off after the prince. ‘My comrade sister will have your reward.’

  Chel and the others followed after the mules, squeezing through the narrow, rotten-smelling gate and into the gatehouse gloom. An arced slice of silver light at its end announced the city beyond. Spider hadn’t yet followed, lingering near the expectant guards.

  ‘Please, your highness,’ he heard Torht call to Mendel as his mule pulled alongside. ‘We’re attempting to remain undiscovered, remember? Do try to keep your identity hidden.’

  ‘Ah, overcooked it a bit, did I? My apologies. Won’t happen again.’

  Chel looked over his shoulder as they reached the inner gate. Spider was taking his time.

  ***

  Low, rugged grey buildings, hewn from the same stone as the walls, stretched away either side as the city rose before them, but it was the twin hills that filled their view, surging up around the ash-walled Cityheart. Along one peak lay the ruins of the imperial palace, broken columns like the bleached bones of some long-dead animal; hacked into the other, the fearsome citadel, the city within the city: Black Rock. It glowered in the weak light, its lone, barbed tower an angry finger of condemnation.

  From everywhere came the sounds and smells of a city in transition, the hammering bellow of dispersed construction, of packed workshops, the scents of metallurgy and masonry mixed. Fumes and stone-dust hung in the misty morning air, while overhead mingled the drifting smoke of a thousand chimneys. The ground crunched beneath Chel’s boots.

  ‘Artisans’ quarter,’ Rennic said in answer to Chel’s expression. ‘Easy to hide in all this.’

  They merged with the traffic of what Chel took to be the city’s main road, carts and wagons two abreast, mules, donkeys and the occasional rider battling for space around each other. Several low-backed wagons rolled past them, piled high with quarried white stone, their fat wheels leaving deep ruts in the churned earth. Rennic watched them pass with a sneer. ‘Still hauling the pale stuff halfway across the kingdom. Pricks must think they’re born-again Taneru.’

  Twice Chel saw flashes of crimson robes in their periphery, swaggering patrols inspecting the shop-fronts that lined the boulevard. He kept his head down, hood forward.

  ‘Five hells,’ Chel said as they trudged past churches, markets, looming crofts and prayer towers, the city’s sprawl unfathomable. The citizens seemed busy but guarded, almost fearful. He was not alone in keeping his gaze low. ‘Just how big is this place?’

  ‘Big,’ Rennic said. ‘Bigger than anything in … Where are you from?’

  ‘Barva.’

  ‘Bigger than anything in Barva. You’ve never been?’

  ‘No.’ He stared at the great white walls looming ahead, nestled between the curves of the peaks. ‘But my father lived here for a while.’

  ‘Lucky him.’

  ***

  At the inner wall, beneath a magnificent gatehouse of crumbling pale stone that Rennic identified as the Queen’s Gate, Torht bade the column pause. The liveried guards at the gate were restless, their idle attentions drawn back to the robed group and their laden mules with increasing frequency.

  ‘Where’s this distraction, then?’ Rennic said, his voice an angry hiss as they congregated. ‘The fucking guards are taking an interest.’

  Torht’s hand was up. ‘A moment’s patience, please, Master Rennic.’

  Chel caught a whiff of something on the breeze, a jarring scent that sent him back to the attack on Denirnas. Alchemy. Somewhere a bell began to ring, then another. Shouts lifted over the outer city’s general hubbub, cries of surprise and alarm.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Chel said.

  ‘I believe our moment is at hand. Prepare to move on, my friends.’

  The shouts were increasingly interwoven with screams. A great din rose from the direction of the Pauper’s Gate at the free way’s distant far end. The bells tolled with urgent frequency. A moment later, a runner in livery pelted past them, tearing up chunks of soft earth with his boots. He screeched to a halt at the gate, before gasping, ‘The Shanties are burning! The vermin are fleeing, trying to flood into the city!’

  The guards exchanged panicked looks. ‘What do we do?’

  The runner raised his arms in exasperation. ‘Come and push them back out! Summon everyone!’

  He took a great gulp of air, then resumed his run, through the gate and into the inner city. The guards looked at one another, hesitant, then hoisted their pole-arms and set off for the outer walls at a jog. A moment later, another dozen guards came through at a run, heading in the same direction, and disappeared into the city.

  The gate stood deserted. Torht cocked his head. ‘Sounds like it is time.’

  ‘Wait,’ Chel said, looking around them. One of the party was still missing. ‘Where’s Spider?’

  ‘Oh, no doubt he’ll catch us up.’

  ***

  The pale constructions of the Cityheart crowded around them, their walls blocking and overlapping each other on the steady rise toward the double-peaked hill that towered over the city. Rennic stirred, squinting up against the day’s dull glare.

  ‘Huh. That’s new.’

  Chel looked up at the wooden scaffolding that wrapped the ruined palace. ‘What’s that? Are they rebuilding it?’

  ‘It’s part of the Restoration,’ Tarfel said from his mule. ‘Asa Keshani said it would … I suppose it was t
he Primarch’s idea.’

  ‘Have you spent much time here, highness?’

  ‘Oh, not in the last few years, Vedren. I’ve only been back a handful of times since I was sent to stay with Duke Reysel.’

  ‘You’ve not seen much of your father?’

  The prince scratched at his chin. ‘No, not as such, a few audiences only, as part of a wider delegation. We’ve exchanged letters, of course — that is, I’ve sent a lot, and he’s sent a few.’ He sat back on the mule with a sigh. ‘Of course, now I know Vassad was pulling the strings, it explains why they were so anodyne. And literate, for that matter.’

  The streets had emptied, the sounds of panic and screaming from the outer city driving the citizens either out of or deep within their homes. Shutters and doors slammed shut as they passed, and the guards that jangled past them at speed were far less concerned with a Merciful Sisters mule-train than they were with the inferno-induced riots at the outer wall. Chel wondered how long it would take them to think to close the inner gate.

  The Watcher had been vague on how they’d cross the Cityheart to the citadel, and now he knew why. He wondered where Spider had set the fire (assuming it had been Spider, and he was certain that it had), and with a sudden cold shock he thought of the children in the artificial forest of driftwood and jetsam, the singing, calling children who had asked him for some of his luck. Would Spider have set the fire in a sparse corner, raised the alarm early to allow those on their route to escape? He pictured the children, lost amid smoke and flames, calling out, coughing … His hands started to tremble, his breath caught in his throat.

  Rennic had moved beside him and now nudged him. ‘Look sharp, piss-cheeks, here comes the citadel.’

  ***

  A half-circle of confessors ringed the foot of the wide, winding steps that led up to the citadel gate. Over their blood-hued tunics, their breastplates shimmered in the day’s chill glare, their breath rising in fat wads of vapour. Long maces hung from their belts or dangled from loose grips.