Corthie nodded as he watched the great masses of the greenhides rush across the plain, their thick, sturdy legs speeding over the rough, broken land. They reached the edge of the moat and halted, swarming along the brink of the dark water. On the other side of the moat, an unbroken wall stretched, behind which soldiers were presenting a thick line of pikes that reached halfway over the water. One of the greenhides roared a cry of frustration up at the walls, then hurled itself across the moat. It reached halfway, then crashed into the water, its limbs flailing as it sank into the depths.
‘They’ve never learned to swim?’
‘No,’ said Kano. ‘They’re dumb brutes. Thousands drown in the moat each year, and we’re safe enough while the water level remains high. The problem is, that the central section of the moat dries up every summer, exposing over a third of the length of the Great Wall to direct assault, and we have four months to contain them before the storms of Sweetmist refill the barrier.’ He pointed over to his left. ‘This is the Fortress of the Lifegiver, and the next fort along is Arrowhead. Beyond that is Stormshield, and it’s at these three forts, and along the walls that lie between them, where the moat dries and the Blades fight every summer. Now,’ he said, smiling, ‘time for a little demonstration.’
He gestured to one of the crew working by the bolt-thrower, and she raised a large yellow flag into the wind, where it unfurled. More yellow flags were lifted from the other towers of the fortress, and Corthie looked back at the massive artillery platform, its height almost level with the battlements of the inner wall. At a signal, over forty huge throwing machines loosed, their long arms arcing through the air unleashing a barrage of projectiles up and over the defences. The massive rocks ripped into the vast sea of greenhides, each ploughing its way through dozens of the tightly-pressed enemy, gouging bloody furrows across the rocky soil. All along the wall, the ballistae, catapults and mangonels loosed; the pink sky flecked with a hailstorm of yard-long bolts and massive stones. Greenhides fell in their hundreds, but every gap in their lines was immediately swallowed up by more of the creatures. Corthie stared into the distance, but could see no end to them, and the bombardment seemed futile.
A cheer rose from the soldiers on the wall and Corthie glanced up as he saw something move through the sky, above the level of the projectiles.
‘Behold our champion,’ said Kano, smiling; ‘worth more than a thousand mortals.’
The flying beast circled for a moment over the battlements, and Corthie glanced at it. It was a winged lizard, its body stretching twenty yards, and its tail even longer. Its hide was dark red with lighter patches on its underside.
‘What do you think?’ said Kano.
‘I’ve seen these beasts before,’ said Corthie. ‘Where I’m from, they’re harnessed to carriages, and fly people and supplies around. What do you use it for? Does it drop rocks onto the greenhides?’
Kano stared at him, then shook his head. ‘Buckler is no mere beast of burden.’
‘You’ve given it a name?’
‘It’s what he likes to be called. He says he has another name, but he keeps that to himself.’
Corthie’s eyes widened. ‘Wait, it can talk?’
‘Of course he can, and stop calling him “it”.’
Tanner laughed. ‘My young friend is thinking of a similar beast.’
‘It’s a winged gaien,’ said Corthie.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Tanner. ‘Watch.’
Kano smiled at the older mercenary, then gestured again to a guard, who raised a red flag. The beast banked in the air, then soared down over the plain as every soldier on the wall watched. As the beast descended, it extended its wings, and a great burst of flames came from its jaws, a thick oily gush of fire that incinerated scores of greenhides in one pass. The greenhides tried to run from the flames, but they were packed too closely together, and Buckler soared back for a second pass.
Corthie’s mouth opened as he watched the flying beast unleash a further blast of flames, the black smoke rising from the smouldering bodies of the greenhides. Every pass was killing a dozen times what each flung rock had achieved, but even so, the beast’s efforts were making little difference to the vast numbers of greenhides. The soldiers on the wall cheered as Buckler returned for a third pass.
Corthie narrowed his eyes. ‘What is it?’
‘That, my young friend,’ said Tanner, ‘is a dragon.’
Chapter 3
The Old Lady of Arrowhead
Sector Six, The Bulwark, The City – 4th Mikalis 3419
‘Maddie!’ yelled her mother. ‘Get your lazy ass down here now.’
‘I’m up!’ she cried as she sprang out of bed. Her room was in pitch darkness and she stumbled as she searched the floor for clothes, landing with a thump amid the scattered ceramic bowls and heaps of dirty washing. She scrambled around, pulling on a pair of leggings and her army tunic. She grabbed her boots by the door and bolted to the narrow staircase, leaping several steps at a time.
‘Why did no one wake me?’ she cried as she burst into her family’s small living room, which doubled as their kitchen. She glanced at the window-clock, which showed the sun’s reflection at an hour after dawn. ‘Malik’s sweaty crotch, I’m going to be late.’
‘No cursing in this house,’ said her mother by the stove, giving her elder daughter a frown.
Maddie sat at the dinner table and began to pull on her boots. ‘I wasn’t cursing. Referring to the perspiration of the God-King’s private bits isn’t cursing.’
‘You know what I mean, girl.’
‘No, I don’t. Please explain, mother, how what I said is a curse.’
Her younger sister Rosie looked up from a pile of wood and metal on the table. ‘Shut up.’
‘You shut up, you little toerag.’
‘Don’t call your sister that.’
‘Why? She is a toerag.’
Her mother put her hands on her hips. ‘Stop arguing and get your boots on. Do you realise the favours me and your father had to ask for to get you another chance? Being thrown out of the infantry was bad enough, but when you quit the arbalest course I could have despaired. Do you want to be put in the Rat Company?’
‘That’s not what it’s called,’ said Maddie. ‘It’s the Auxiliary Work Company.’
‘Yes,’ said her mother, sighing, ‘but you do know what job they have to do? If you antagonise everyone you meet, then that’s where you’ll be sent.’
Rosie smirked. ‘She wouldn’t survive an hour in the moat.’
‘No, she would be ripped to shreds by those beasts on the other side of the wall.’
Maddie shrugged. She laced up one boot, then pulled the other on as her sister shuffled the wooden and metal pieces on the table.
‘Is that a crossbow?’
Rosie glanced up. ‘It’s a siege-bow; longer and heavier. You would know that if you hadn’t quit the course.’
‘And why have they given one to an idiot like you?’
‘It was crushed by a falling boulder over by the mangonel battery, and I’m fixing it.’
‘Yeah, right. You?’
‘Yeah, me. I’m going to work on it for a couple of hours each day. I repaired Dad’s crossbow didn’t I?’
‘That was pure luck,’ said Maddie. ‘You were eleven. You didn’t have a clue what you were doing.’
‘Maybe, but I’m fourteen now, and I’m better with my hands than you’ll ever be. You’ll see. In a month or so I’m going to shoot my first greenhide with it. I’ll cover you while you’re shovelling gore from the moat with the rest of the Rats.’
‘Girls, enough,’ said their mother. ‘Maddie, go; there’s no time for breakfast, just get yourself along to the fort before registration. You’ve still got time if you run.’
Maddie glanced around. ‘Where’s Tom?’
‘Your brother left an hour ago. Please, don’t make me raise my voice. Go.’
Maddie frowned and got up.
‘She won’t las
t a day,’ muttered Rosie.
‘Right, just for that I will,’ Maddie said. She pulled her army coat from a hook and walked to the front door. Her stomach rumbled as she stepped outside into the red glow of morning. She ran down the street, passing the rows of identical cube houses where the other Blades of Sector Six lived. She reached the Sixth Plaza, the centre of her district, and dodged through a crowd of milling recruits, her eyes on the position of the sun on the horizon to her right.
If only one of her useless family had woken her, she thought, then she could have had some breakfast, and would be walking to the fort, instead of running like an idiot. A shadow flitted across the sky and she glanced up at the flying serpent, its red scales shimmering in the morning light. The beast liked to stretch its long wings each dawn and she remembered when Buckler had arrived over ten years before, and how the first thing he had done was to launch himself into the sky and fly away. At the time, most had thought that he would never return, but he had, and every day since had been the same. She shuddered to think what the survival rates of the Rat Company had been like before Buckler had appeared in the Bulwark. He was a gift from the gods, or so they said, a miracle procured by the divine wisdom of the God-King and God-Queen. A few even believed he might be the redeemer, come to save them, but Maddie didn’t hold with such wishful thinking.
She sprinted down the wide avenue that linked the Sixth Plaza to the entrance of the mighty fortress of Stormshield. On her right lay the divisional marshalling yards, an open, dusty plain where hundreds of soldiers were holding the repetitive drills that had driven her crazy with boredom during her short-lived time in the infantry.
The huge gatehouse of Stormshield loomed ahead, and she raced past the guards by the open entrance and entered the fort. Hundreds were assembling within the vast forecourt by the towering barracks blocks, and she scanned the raised standards, looking for the unit her parents had talked into giving their wayward daughter another chance. The banner of the Seventh Support Battalion was fluttering in the warm breeze. A small group of officers had gathered next to the young standard-bearer, and were checking a long scroll. Maddie ran to the end of the lines that led from the banner, and put her hands on her knees, wheezing and panting.
She laughed to herself. Just in time.
An officer began to read out a list of names, and the assembled men and women raised their hands in turn.
Maddie straightened, conscious of the looks she was getting, She pulled her hair back and tied it into a long ponytail, and wiped the sweat from her brow. She glanced around as more names were called out, looking for any faces she recognised, and saw a couple of guys she remembered from infantry training. Unlike her, they had been ejected from the front line forces due to sheer incompetence, rather than her annoying habit of pointing out why many of their orders didn’t make any sense. If there was one thing officers hated, it was being told they were wrong by the lower orders.
‘Maddie Jackdaw,’ the voice called out.
She raised her hand, half-expecting to be singled out and told there had been a mistake, but the officer went on to the next name.
Someone nudged her with an elbow. ‘You’re one of the Jackdaws?’
‘Clearly.’
‘My sister was good friends with Nahil Jackdaw.’
‘There are lots of Jackdaws,’ Maddie said. ‘I don’t know them all.’
‘What about Nahil’s brother Amon? You must know him, he was…’
‘Nope.’
Another recruit butted in. ‘She’s Tom’s little sister. I used to see her play out in the street when I was young. A right little toerag she was.’
‘Screw you,’ Maddie said. ‘You call me that again and I’ll break your nose.’
‘That’s weird,’ said the first recruit. ‘I met Tom once, and he told me he only had one sister, and her name was Rosie.’
‘Probably ashamed,’ laughed the second recruit.
Maddie swung her fist and struck the woman in the face. Within seconds, the queuing recruits had transformed into a mass of shoving and shouted recriminations. Hands grabbed Maddie’s arms, so she kicked the closest guy in the groin, and he doubled over, shrieking in pain. A fist glanced off her cheek as her left arm was twisted behind her back, and another blow landed in her stomach. She prepared herself for a beating as more fists flew in.
Army wardens piled into the melee, their clubs lashing out. The crowd pulled back as officers shouted out orders. The hands let go of Maddie’s arms and she slid to the flagstones, gasping for breath and aching in a dozen places.
‘What in the name of Amalia’s sacred blood is going here?’ cried an officer. ‘Who started this?’
None of the recruits spoke, and Maddie opened her eyes from where she lay on the ground.
‘I want a name,’ said the officer, ‘or the entire battalion will be assisting the Auxiliary Work Company today.’
There was a sharp intake of breath from the assembled recruits. Wardens were prowling up and down the lines brandishing their clubs but still, no one spoke.
Maddie raised her arm.
‘Speak, Private.’
Two wardens came over and hauled her up by her shoulders.
‘Well?’ said the officer.
‘I was provoked.’
‘That doesn’t matter; did you strike first?’
‘Yeah, but I was…’
‘Silence, Private.’ She glanced at a junior officer. ‘Her name?’
‘Private Maddie Jackdaw, ma’am.’
The officer shook her head. ‘The one I was warned about?’
‘Yes, ma’am; she was discharged from the infantry for insubordination.’
‘And she starts a fight within five minutes of joining our battalion?’
Maddie struggled in the grip of the wardens pinning her shoulders. ‘This isn’t fair; I was provoked!’
The officer looked at her with disdain. ‘Yes, you probably were. However, it is your response to that which is the subject of my attention, Private. Your lack of self-control is evident, as is your inability to work as part of a close-knit team.’
‘I have self-control. Ma’am.’
‘Really? Tell me, Private, if someone were to repeat the same provocation, how would you react?’
‘I, uh…’
‘As I thought.’ She glanced at the wardens. ‘Get her out of my sight. I need a little time to decide what’s to be done with young Jackdaw.’
‘The Rats,’ murmured a low voice from somewhere in the crowd.
Maddie’s eyes glanced over the other company recruits, searching for the source of the comment; trying to see who had dared to make such a suggestion as her anger bubbled and simmered.
The arms gripping her shoulders started to guide her away from the crowd, leading her towards a stone blockhouse by the iceward walls of the fortress, where the punishment cells lay. She writhed in their grasp, but the hands were strong, and pushed her onwards.
‘Guys,’ she said, ‘this is a mistake; I’ve done nothing to deserve the cells, come on…’
The two wardens ignored her, and they entered the low block. It was dark inside, and stank of stale urine and worse. A long, double row of barred cells lined the walls of a passageway.
‘Who do we have here?’ said a man rising from a chair by the door, a huge ring of keys by his belt. He picked up a wax-board and stylus from a small desk.
‘Private Maddie Jackdaw,’ said one of the wardens. ‘Colonel Lichter wants her secured until a decision’s been made about her future.’
The jailer nodded, and wrote onto the wax-board. He glanced up. ‘Cell seventeen’s free.’
The wardens and the man escorted Maddie down the passageway, then shoved her into a damp, filthy cell. The barred gate was closed, and the jailer locked it.
‘There’s a bucket in the corner,’ he said, ‘and fresh water in the…’
Maddie glared at them through the bars. ‘I know how it works.’
‘This is not your
first stay, then?’
She shrugged.
‘Look at her,’ the jailer said; ‘she has “Rat” written all over her face.’
‘My boot will be all over your face when I get out of here.’
The wardens and the man laughed, then they disappeared down the passageway. Maddie stared at the dark, empty corridor for a few moments, as what had happened began to sink in. Her parents were going to lose it completely when they found out. A grizzled old soldier in the cell opposite glanced up at her from his straw mattress, and Maddie retreated into the darkness of her own cell. There was a narrow opening, but it gave out onto a view of the high curtain wall of the fortress, and was letting in almost no light. She sat on the edge of her mattress, and prepared for a long wait.
None of it was her fault. In the infantry, the officers had been pig-headed fools, who had taken a perverse pleasure in issuing the most irrational orders. Move that pile of rocks over there. You’ve done that? Right, now move it all back again. It had driven Maddie to the edge; how could she obey such foolish commands? It was clear that those in control didn’t want the infantry thinking for themselves, but she couldn’t bring herself to play along with their silly games. The arbalest course; that wasn’t her fault either. No one had told her how much geometry and arithmetic she would need to master, and the equations had frustrated her to breaking point. She was clever; everyone had always said that, but she clearly had no head for numbers. She had walked out during an examination on angles, wind-speed, and the force with which a catapult could hurl a half-tonne boulder over a quarter of a mile. It was pointless. As long as the damn boulder hit the greenhides, who cared about the rate of acceleration?
A cold shiver rippled down her back as she pondered the colonel’s decision. She had often watched the Rat Company at work from the safety of the battlements. Even with Buckler and the Wolfpack protecting them, the casualties they sustained were higher than any other unit. Once she had witnessed the annihilation of the entire company in a single outing beyond the walls. The red dragon had tired early for some reason, and the greenhides had surged through the thin cordon of Wolfpack fighters. They had ripped and hacked every member of the Rat Company into bloody pieces, as the onlookers had watched in stunned silence from the walls. The siege-bows and ballistae had been operating at maximum capacity, and hundreds of greenhides had been killed, their bodies heaped up between the dry moat and the outer wall; but it didn’t matter how many of the enemy fell, there were always others to take their place.
The Mortal Blade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Magelands Eternal Siege Book 1) Page 4
