‘Here they come!’ someone cried.
Corthie drew his sword. It was lighter than what he was used to, but the steel and finish were decent enough.
‘Forget about that, big man,’ shouted one of the Wolfpack as they began to retreat; ‘just get your ass out of here.’
There was a whompf of noise as the heap of dead was lit and the oil ignited. With a flash of flames, Corthie saw the plain light up before him. Charging towards the moat in their hundreds, their thousands, the greenhides were roaring out their rage, their long claws gleaming in the firelight. Corthie stepped back, keeping in formation with the rest of the Wolfpack, his eyes never leaving the approaching tide.
The rule was, the longer you had served in the Wolfpack, the quicker you were allowed back over the bridges, and the veterans clambered up as they reached the lip of the deep barrier. The cranes had been disassembled and were being pushed back along the ground towards the gate in the outer wall, but several Rats were still in the moat, waiting by the ladders for their chance to flee.
‘We’re going to make it,’ said Tanner, his eyes wide as he stared at the approaching greenhides.
‘Of course we are,’ said Corthie; ‘we’re not dying tonight.’
There were screams and the sound of twisting wood behind them, and Corthie watched as one of the bridges buckled and fell into the moat, crashing onto the last of the Rats. Though most of the Wolfpack had crossed, several had still been on it, and they lay groaning in the filthy water at the bottom.
Corthie had no time to react as the first greenhides reached them. A man six yards to his left was ripped in half by a single lash of thick claws. The greenhide stopped to drink his blood as the others piled on.
This was it, Corthie thought, this was what he had trained for. Rather than be on the back foot, he surged his battle-vision and powered forward into the mass of greenhides, swinging his sword into the face of the nearest. Claws ripped through his shield in seconds and tore a six-inch gash down his left arm, but he smothered the pain, and let his battle-vision do the work. With it, he could move faster than his conscious mind could process. His senses and reactions were honed to a razor-sharpness by years of intensive training, and he kept moving, ducking and rolling under the lunges of the greenhides. He struck out, again and again, his balance and speed too fast for the greenhides to keep up with, and he carved his way through them. He killed several, but many more were left unharmed by his attacks; his sword cutting into, but not through the thick hides that covered their backs and chests. A splash of green blood hit him in the face and he was blinded for a moment. A powerful blow sent him flying backwards, his leather cuirass ripped and bloody. He rolled under a swipe and struck upwards. His sword cut through the forelimb of a beast, and it dropped to the ground. As it howled in agony, Corthie swung again, his blade striking the extended talons of another greenhide, and his sword snapped.
Corthie scrambled away as claws raked the ground where he had fallen. He let go of the broken sword, and reached for the hacked-off forelimb. He punched his fist into the soft flesh of the wound, as more greenhides surrounded him, closing in. He grasped the arm bone in his hand, and swung it with all his strength. The talons ripped through the armour of the closest greenhide as if it were made of paper. Corthie pushed his hand further into the bloody limb to get a better grip, then rose to his feet, his eyes flickering in a battle-vision trance. He charged into the beasts, using the limb like an armoured gauntlet, hacking through the tough, green armour back towards the moat.
The moat.
For a moment his head cleared. The other moat-bridge had been pulled back, and the last of the Rats and the Wolfpack were hurrying through the gate in the outer wall. His heightened senses took in what he needed in a second, then he turned back to the greenhides. They were circling him, keeping a short distance away after seeing what he could do with his own set of claws. The trail of those he had slain stretched down across the plain; had he really charged so far? Behind him, the moat was still a good ten yards away. He stepped up onto the thick, rounded back of a dead greenhide.
‘You want me?’ he cried, brandishing the talons, their edges gleaming in green blood.
They was a low roar behind him. It had been going on for a while, but it hadn’t registered in Corthie’s mind. It was coming from the battlements. At the same time, there was whoosh overhead, and Corthie blinked as a torrent of bright flame surged down from the sky. It struck the greenhides in a wide swathe a hundred yards from where Corthie was standing, incinerating dozens. The greenhides surrounding him screamed out in rage and fear at the dragon, and charged Corthie. He twisted on his feet, slashing out with the talons, felling them as they came into reach. He had never surged his battle-vision to such a pitch, but, he thought, as the green blood sprayed around him, he had never been surrounded by greenhides before.
A burst of flame crashed alongside him, the heat and blast sending him falling to the side, the hair on his left arm singed. Stupid lizard! Was it trying to kill him? He leaped up, then rolled as another surge of flame scorched the ground by his feet.
Corthie glanced up at the sky, then at the moat. The damn flying beast was clearing the way home for him. He charged into the few greenhides remaining between him and the moat, cutting them down with his claws. He broke into a sprint. Thirty feet, they said. Looked more like twenty-five to him. His foot struck the edge of the moat and he jumped. For a moment he felt nothing but the air on his face, but the sound coming from the walls was rising to a crescendo. He slammed into the moat wall, and punched the stonework with the talons. They dug in deep, and he dangled for a moment, held in place only by the strength of the greenhide claws. He reached up with his left hand and climbed to the top of the wall.
A roar greeted him. All along the battlements, soldiers and other Blades were watching him. He raised his left hand to them, and the noise increased. He turned to the greenhides. They were screaming hatred at him from across the moat, but their numbers were fast dwindling as most retreated from the dragon’s fire.
Corthie brandished the greenhide claws at them. ‘Remember me next time,’ he cried. ‘I’ll be coming for the rest of you.’
Buckler swooped overhead, making a low pass across the moat, as if to take a closer look at the man standing on the moat wall. Corthie waited until the last greenhides had fled out of sight, then turned and jumped to the ground. The gate in the outer wall was still open, and some of the Wolfpack ran out.
Tanner sprinted over to him. He stared at Corthie, shaking his head. ‘So you weren’t joking, then?’
‘Malik’s ass, check the state of him,’ another said. She grabbed his arm, and starting pulling him towards the gate, ‘he’s got a least a dozen wounds; how is he still standing? We need to get him to a medic. And we need to get that thing off his arm.’
‘I’m fine,’ Corthie said, though he let her continue to pull him along. ‘I heal quick, and the battle-vision masks the pain. And don’t touch the claws; I’m keeping them.’
The soldiers shoved him through the gate and into a large forecourt, where hundreds had gathered. They roared out a cheer as Corthie entered. The captain of the Wolfpack saw him and strode forwards.
‘Son,’ he said, as Corthie stood in front of him, the greenhide talons dripping green blood onto the flagstones. ‘Everyone listen,’ the officer went on, ‘I want you all to hear this. I called this soldier a liar to his face this morning, for we all know that’s it’s impossible for a mortal to possess battle-vision.’ He turned back to Corthie. ‘I was wrong, and I apologise for my insult.’ He gestured to an aide. ‘Take him inside and let the doctor attend to his wounds. After that,’ he said glancing back at Corthie, ‘what would you like, son? Name it, and if it’s within my power, I’ll grant it.’
Corthie gazed as the crowds. Some were acting as if he had saved the world, rather than kill a few dozen greenhides, and he suspected one or two of them were close to hysteria.
He raised the claws. ‘
I want someone to take the talons from this and make me a weapon,’ he said, ‘and then I want a bath, some breakfast, and maybe a couple of drinks.’
‘Tell us a story!’ cried a voice from the crowd.
Corthie smiled, a mug of bitter spirits mixed with red wine in his hand. The Wolfpack common room was packed, with the entire company in attendance, as well as dozens of other Blades who had crammed in. Corthie had been seated at a long table, with his back to the wall, so that as many of the others could see him as possible. His left arm was bandaged, as was his chest, right hip, shin, and there was a dressing on his neck, but the battle-vision was still dulling the pain, and the spirits were helping, too.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m the new one here, I want to hear more about the City. Like, for example, what’s wrong with your sun?’ He lifted his finger to demonstrate. ‘In normal places, it rises on one side of the sky, goes up to the top, then goes down the other side. Your one just goes up a little bit, stays there, then goes down again in the same place. I mean, what?’
The crowd looked at him as if he were mad. He laughed and downed the contents of his mug. As soon as he placed it back on the table, hands reached out to refill it. On his right, Tanner was also drunk; a stupid grin glued to his face. On his other side sat the woman who had grabbed his arm by the moat-wall. Her name was Corporal Quill, he had since learned. Since that moment by the wall, she had barely left his side, making sure he had been treated well by the medics, and arranging a massive breakfast that he had finished in ten minutes.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘How about something less astronomical, and a bit more histroci… historical? I heard that two actual gods rule the City. Why doesn’t someone tell me about that?’
‘That’s easy,’ said Quill, ‘I can do that.’
‘We can fetch a teacher from one of the schools,’ said another.
‘Let Quill do it,’ Corthie said. ‘I like the sound of her voice.’
The corporal’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. ‘Alright. Um… Right, for a thousand years, there were just the five cities…’
‘Five? I thought there was only one?’
‘They were more like towns, then, but they called themselves cities. They were Tara, Dalrig, Pella, Ooste, and on the other side of the straits, there was also Jezra. They fought each other for ages, back and forth, blah blah, and not much happened until…’
‘Not much happened?’ said an incredulous voice from the crowd. ‘You missed out the entire Golden Age of Pella, and the Ascendancy of Tara.’
Quill waved her hand at the complainer. ‘No one cares about that, I want to get to the good stuff. Right, everything was going fine, yeah, and then, in the year 970, suddenly, out of nowhere, the greenhides arrived. Luckily for us, but not so much for Jezra, they made their first appearance on the other side of the straits. Took them about a day to wipe Jezra from the map, and all the folk here could do was watch and weep. It took them a couple of years to get to this side of the straits…’
‘They went via the sunward deserts,’ said someone, ‘because they like the sun and hate the cold and dark.’
‘Stop interrupting!’ cried Quill. ‘Anyway, by the time the greenhides arrived, the four remaining cities had bound themselves together into an alliance and repaired their defences. Even so, the siege was brutal.’ She lifted her fingers and placed them an inch apart. ‘We were that close to extinction. If the siege had lasted a few more months, so they say, then the last folk would have been obliterated from this world.’
‘Hang on,’ said Corthie. ‘The “last folk”? You mean there are no other towns or cities in this world?’
Quill shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve never actually seen the rest of the world, but we’ve got unending deserts two hundred miles sunward of us, and unending darkness and cold a couple of hundred miles iceward. As far as we know, the greenhides rule the rest. Here’s the miracle bit. Just as the four cities were starting to starve, and the walls close to being breached, then, like a vision from the sky, the God-King Malik, and God-Queen Amalia descended from the clouds in all their power, and they smote the greenhides…’
Corthie laughed. ‘”Smote”?’
‘I’m quoting from the Book of the Gods,’ she said; ‘I’ll get you a copy and you can read it yourself. After much smiting, the greenhides lay dead in their hundreds of thousands, and the new king and queen moved into Ooste. They built the Union Walls and the Royal Palace, and have ruled us ever since.’
‘Praise be to the gods!’ cried someone, and others joined in, lifting their hands and bowing their heads.
‘I have a question,’ said Corthie. ‘If Malik and Amalia are so good at smiting, then why are we doing the fighting? Why don’t they live in the Bulwark and smite away to their heart’s content? Sounds like a load of crap to me.’
Many in the crowd looked aghast at him, shock imprinted onto their features.
Quill glanced at him. ‘You might, eh, want to be careful what you say about the God-King and God-Queen.’
‘Why? Will they smite me?’ He started to laugh, the spirits loosening him. ‘I notice that no one has actually answered my question.’
‘God-Queen Amalia destroyed the greenhides, unaided, for nearly a thousand years,’ said Quill. ‘Then she and the God-King had six children, to spread the burden. When Prince Michael came of age, they handed the reins of power to him, and went into a well-deserved retirement in Ooste.’
Corthie chortled. ‘Gods need to retire, do they? So this Michael guy’s in charge? I thought it was someone else…’ He scratched his head. ‘Oh aye, I remember. Lord Naxor’s mother, whatever her name is.’
‘Princess Khora?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘The princess has ruled for three hundred years, ever since Prince Michael was martyred.’
The crowd fell into a hushed and reverential silence.
‘Did the greenhides get him?’
‘Of course not,’ said Quill; ‘he was murdered at the end of the Civil War by his sister, Princess Yendra. Only gods can kill other gods.’
Corthie smiled, and took another long swig. ‘What I’m about to say, it might come over as bragging.’
Quill smiled back. ‘I think you earned the right to brag last night.’
‘Mortals can kill gods too.’
Several people gasped, as if his words had offended them.
‘And how in Malik’s name could you know that?’ said one of the Wolfpack.
Corthie shrugged. ‘Because I’ve killed one myself.’
Silence fell over the common room, and, despite the alcohol clouding his mind, Corthie could see how uncomfortable he was making them. He laughed to himself.
‘Shall I tell you that story? A god came looking for me and my family; they were trying to wipe us out. One broke into my family home. He killed an entire company of soldiers who were there to protect us. He had these… death powers, where he could lift his hand, and people would die. You heard of a power like that?’ He glanced up, and saw the silent nods. ‘So in he comes, right, and there are dead soldiers all over the floor. I didn’t know I had battle-vision until that moment.’ He took another swig.
‘What happened?’ said Quill.
‘I picked up a glass ashtray and bashed his brains in. Hit them faster than they can heal, that’s the trick with gods.’
‘How old were you?’ said Quill.
‘Fourteen.’
A small group by the door raised their arms and began to chant, their eyes closed.
‘Get those religious freaks out of here,’ cried a soldier, and the group was herded out of the common room.
‘Who are they?’ Corthie said.
‘Ignore them,’ said Quill. ‘How did you avoid the god’s death powers?’
Corthie shrugged. ‘I’m immune to them; I’m immune to all mage attacks.’
‘Mage? What’s that? Do you mean god?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Wait a minute. Am I the only normal person,
I mean the only mortal, that you’ve heard of with powers?’
‘Are there more like you where you’re from?’
Tanner opened his eyes and put a hand on Corthie’s arm. ‘Time for some fresh air, lad.’
‘I thought you were too drunk to speak.’
The older man stood. ‘That’s enough stories for today. The big guy needs his rest.’
Corthie frowned. ‘I’m fine; I’m just getting into the swing of things.’
Tanner’s eyes tightened.
‘Fine,’ Corthie muttered, downing the rest of his drink. He stood, amid cries of complaints. ‘Same time tomorrow?’ he said to the crowd.
Corporal Quill also got to her feet, and the three soldiers squeezed through the crowd. Folk reached out to touch Corthie as he passed, and he blew kisses to the prettiest young women. Tanner grabbed his arm, and they emerged into the giant forecourt of Arrowhead Fort. The interior was cast into shade, as it always was, though the sky overhead was almost blue. Tanner began saying something, but Corthie wasn’t paying any attention.
‘This is what I was talking about,’ he said. ‘It must be nearly noon, and where’s the damn sun?’
He wandered into the forecourt, oblivious to the fresh crowds that were gathering. Many had been forced to stand outside the Wolfpack common room, and they crowded round him. He craned his neck, and saw a high wooden platform, the top of which towered over the battlements.
‘What’s that?’ he said, pointing.
‘We need to get indoors,’ said Tanner, eyeing the crowds with unease.
‘It’s Buckler’s Eyrie,’ said Quill; ‘it’s where he sits when he’s not flying.’
Corthie nodded. ‘I need to get up there. Take a look at the damn sun.’
‘What?’ said Quill. ‘You can’t. No one’s allowed up there except the dragon, and anyway, it’s too high to climb…’ Her last words tailed away as Corthie wandered off. She and Tanner followed, barging their way through the crowds behind him.
The Mortal Blade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Magelands Eternal Siege Book 1) Page 9
