The Spider

by Leo Carew

  “You must go!” she insisted, but she was turned back to the window by the power of the smoke. “Don’t stay—” she coughed suddenly. “Please! I will jump if it means you will.”

  “I’m going to,” said Salbjorn, reappearing with an armful of goatskins. His eyes were streaming, his face covered with sweat, and he panted at the window for a few moments, struggling to open his eyes. He hurled the goatskins down onto the ground, and then stepped up onto the windowsill. “And so are you,” he said, lowering himself off the sill. For a moment, he clutched on by his fingertips, dangling over ground and staring down at the drop. Then he let go.

  Salbjorn plunged into the dark, hitting the stones beneath and bouncing backwards with the power of his fall. Inger could hear him grunt in pain as the breath was forced from his lungs, and knew such a fall would break her legs. Even Salbjorn was getting to his feet with extreme caution, staggering on an injured ankle. He called Leon to him and the two exchanged hurried words. Behind them, the bucket-line was finally getting water onto the flames, but it was too slow, and they were achieving no more than the rain, which already pounded the courtyard. Such a lethal fire had to be by design.

  A blotch of darkness was unfurled beneath Inger. Leon and Salbjorn had each taken one edge of a goatskin and stretched it between them. “Jump!” Salbjorn called. “Aim for the skin, it will break your fall!”

  Even if the two guardsmen could meaningfully break her fall, the target looked minuscule from this height. Inger looked back into the room, and had to turn away at once from the terrible heat on her face. Her eyes began to stream and she found she could not see. By touch, she clambered up onto the windowsill. She stood, balanced on the sill, trembling, blind and hesitating, but there was nothing to wait for. Her vision would not return: not before she was in clear air.

  She toppled forward.

  Inger hurtled through the dark, arms flailing at the air roaring past her ears. She hit the goatskin with a whoomp, her momentum carrying her through and onto the stones beneath, where she jarred to a halt. Leon and Salbjorn were dragged inward by the force of her fall, collapsing on top of her. She lay panting for a moment, eyes still streaming, throat still burning and lungs still objecting to their noxious contents. She felt the two figures above her roll away, and a hand took her shoulder, turning her over so that the freezing rain splattered her face.

  “Inquisitor? Are you all right?” It was Salbjorn’s voice. Inger gasped lungfuls of thin mountain air, feeling her heartbeat reverberate through her limbs. She managed a nod. “We’re going to move you back from the flames. Lie still.”

  She could feel the tension in the skin beneath her as the two guardsmen gripped its edges once more and dragged her across the courtyard. “Just stay here, my lady,” came Salbjorn’s voice as she came to a halt. “We need to stop the flames spreading. We’ll be back.”

  Inger heard the two of them sprint away. Coughing, she sat up, wiping her eyes and forcing them open. Their longhouse, now across the courtyard, was a skeletal inferno, the outer walls a fragile façade between the night and the roaring flames behind. In front, figures scrambled to empty buckets over the flames and the neighbouring longhouse to prevent it, too, succumbing to fire. The entire scene had an eerie halo, caused by the tears still flooding her eyes. She needed water, and got stiffly to her feet and began limping to the neighbouring longhouse in search of a pail. As she approached the edge of the courtyard, a figure rounded the corner of the longhouse and thumped into her. Inger staggered backwards, too surprised to react.

  Then she focused on the half-illuminated face before her. It was rough, puckered with scarring, and stared back with such menace that she took another step away. His silhouette was stocky: very much too stocky to be one of the young tutors here. And flashing at his side was a long, wicked knife.

  The two of them simply stared at one another wide-eyed for a moment, each as shocked as the other. Then Inger filled her lungs.

  “Intruder!” she bellowed.

  Assassin.

  3

  When the Dead Rise

  Roper and Keturah rode through a leafy arch of elm; Gray and another Sacred Guardsman, Hartvig, behind. They had descended from the mountains the previous evening, the passes still thick with enough snow to trouble the horses, and now travelled in companionable silence.

  Roper did not know what was occupying Keturah’s thoughts, but his were dwelling on an image. It was his dead friend Helmec. His twisted neck, his armoured chest. The filth that wrapped him, the bodies on which he rested. The image was significant, Roper knew. He did not associate it with any particular emotion. When it appeared in his head, as it did several times a day, he felt no shock or grief. It was just significant; compelling his attention. He did not hear the low noises of Pryce and Gray talking, which he knew had accompanied it, nor the smell of mud, petrichor and blood. He just remembered the image, oddly stark, and undeniably significant.

  Roper felt, with just as much assurance as he knew the image was important, that he ought not to dwell on it. To be so consumed by something was possession, a cardinal sin in the Black Kingdom. So he looked at Keturah, who was staring straight ahead, wearing a slight frown.

  “Your father sent me another message this morning,” he said.

  “Another one? What’s he complaining about now?”

  “The wool shortage again.”

  “Has he been going on about a wool shortage?”

  “Endlessly,” said Roper. “This is the third messenger he’s sent on the subject. He seems to think I’m ignoring him.”

  Keturah shrugged. “So the women of the fortress get a brief respite from their interminable weaving,” she said acidly. “The world will go on, what’s the problem?”

  “He says people don’t have enough to make new summer clothes. So much has been traded to Hanover in exchange for iron that we’re facing a shortfall. I gave the go-ahead for trading to begin too early and now we’ve exhausted our supplies.”

  Keturah rolled her eyes. “That will have upset him; my father loves detail. It’s hardly the greatest crisis you’ve faced, though. The sheep will be rooed in, what, five weeks? And then the subjects will be able to make all the summer clothes their hearts desire.”

  “I don’t quite understand the problem,” admitted Roper.

  Keturah glanced sidelong at him and smirked slightly.

  Roper was tempted to ignore her and did for a moment. Behind them, Gray and Hartvig were swept up in conversation about which animal they would least like to encounter alone in the forest. It seemed that Gray thought bear, Hartvig aurochs. But the image of Helmec surfaced in Roper’s mind once more, so he turned back to his wife. “What?”

  “You are a wartime leader, my husband,” she said shortly. “It is the only thing that commands your attention long enough that you see it through.” Roper blinked at that. He rode in silence for a while, thinking about what she had said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked at last.

  “By all accounts,” said Keturah, “and judging by what you’ve achieved, you are highly capable when on campaign. More than capable. Gray tells me you don’t even have to think very hard: your understanding of gestures, of how your enemy thinks and your men respond, comes to you naturally. When you are at home…” she trailed off and then turned in her saddle to give him a corrosive smile. “You are bored. You don’t even think. You don’t care enough about your trade agreements to give them a moment’s thought beyond that which it takes to approve them. As a consequence, none of the plans you make in peace are coherent. This wool shortage is a perfect example. It does not inspire you like battle does, so you didn’t think about it, and as a result, people will be angry.”

  “I do care,” said Roper, smiling vaguely at her tirade.

  “You care if it is brought to your attention,” said Keturah, her head flopping onto one shoulder in exasperation. “But if I, or my father, keep bringing things to your attention you will get bored of that too.�
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  The words stung Roper, but they infiltrated each excuse he mustered in resistance.

  “I don’t think we’re going to change that,” said Keturah, “but let’s think about your rule so far. It started with the first ever retreat of a full call-up of legionaries from battle. It was followed by our first plague in decades; a somewhat clumsy purge in which you were very obviously responsible for the death or disgrace of some highly esteemed subjects.” Here she gripped his arm, meeting his eye and giving him a very different smile to her last. She knew he had done that in defence of her. “And finally, one of your lieutenants—”

  “Your cousin,” interrupted Roper.

  “Your lieutenant,” insisted Keturah, “killed and dismembered one of the kingdom’s most beloved warriors.”

  Roper let out a slow breath. After the Battle of Harstathur, where they had fought and beaten the Sutherners, Pryce had taken the opportunity to kill Roper’s old rival Uvoren, and obliterated his body for good measure. The act had been more than mere savagery, though Pryce was not beyond that. It had been a statement. When Catastrophe, the apocalyptic mail-clad snake, rose from the eastern deserts, the dead would rise with her. All those with an intact skeleton would drag themselves free from the earth and stand among the ferns and the trees, casting around with mud-filled sockets for weapons. Those who had been honourable, noble subjects, would brave the odds and fight against her. The greatest Anakim heroes even had their bodies preserved in the Holy Temple so they were armed, armoured and ready to draw swords in this last, great conflict. They were turned to face eastwards, watching for the moment Catastrophe would rise, ready to resist at a heartbeat’s notice.

  Those who had been selfish, self-pitying, jealous or weak-willed in life, would be seduced by Catastrophe’s hissed promises of wealth and glory, and fight on her side. When Pryce destroyed Uvoren’s body, he had made a judgement that the captain would be one of those who fought with Catastrophe, against the angels. It was not merely the gravest insult that he could have administered; it also condemned Uvoren’s soul to a tortured, earthly existence. Without the stabilising influence of his body, it could not make the journey over the Winter Road and across to the Otherworld: the Anakim afterlife. The act had caused a public outcry. Many had not liked Uvoren, but death absolves one’s sins more surely than redemption. The execution had martyred him.

  “That seems a harsh assessment,” said Roper, in response to Keturah’s inventory of his rule.

  “Set against it,” Keturah went on, “are your not inconsiderable martial successes. Three magnificent victories, each won against dreadful odds. That is why your popularity is as good as it is: our people love glory and will honour you for it. But the longer you spend as a peacetime ruler, the more they will remember your faults. You will get back into the Hindrunn and discover those resentful stares from people who think you are a messy lord.”

  “Has Harstathur faded from their memories already?” asked Roper.

  “That was tainted by Uvoren’s death, and the rumours that it was carried out on your orders. Husband,” she said, suddenly losing her restraint, “you need a new campaign. You promised you would sack Lundenceaster. Our kingdom can grow rich through war again, rather than poor. Do that, and people will begin to remember how skilled you can be. They will forgive the occasional confused trade deal, or grain shortage, or civil enemy that you subdue, as long as you consolidate your reputation as someone who can bring us victories on the field. Your other option is to sit at home, watch the people get more frustrated and the Kryptea more restless.” The Kryptea were one of Roper’s greatest enemies, and one whom he could not touch. They were an order of assassins, tasked with maintaining stability in the kingdom, often by executing despotic Black Lords. Originally conceived as a check against tyranny, over the centuries they had accrued power and jealousy until now their actions were utterly unpredictable. Still, people were too frightened by far to confront them.

  “There are better reasons than that for invading Suthdal,” Roper replied.

  “None that I can think of,” said Keturah, as though that settled the matter.

  “I can think of one very good one, which I haven’t heard from anyone yet,” Roper insisted. “Do you know how many legionaries I command?”

  Keturah shrugged.

  “Less than seventy thousand,” said Roper. “Do you know how many there were at the beginning of last year?”

  A shake of the head.

  “Ninety thousand. Twenty years before that, my grandfather led an invasion of one hundred and twenty thousand. Every year that we are at war, we have fewer legionaries. How many will there be at the end of my rule? How many left for the next generation? Defending our borders is no longer enough. The Sutherners always have more men. Agriculture means they can infest their land, and losing a battle does not impact their population, like it does ours. They will always have enough men. Every year, we will have less.”

  “I don’t quite see how this justifies a raid south,” said Keturah.

  “This will not be a raid,” said Roper. “It will be an invasion. Simply preserving our way of life here is no longer enough. I cannot believe nobody has seen this before. Our strength grows weaker and weaker, and our ability to subdue Suthdal—to end this war, once and for all—is fading away. That child you carry,” he said, glancing at the slight bulge beneath Keturah’s cloak, “may inhabit a world in which we are at the mercy of the Sutherners. It may curse us, for not ending this war while we had the chance and instead hoping blindly that it lasts our own time. This war will rumble on, and in twenty years, we will be too few to conquer Suthdal. We will be eroded further and further until we have no choice in our slow decline, until there is no way back. But at this moment, we still have a choice,” he said, grimly. “We can take this entire island and put open ocean between us and the Sutherners. We can end this now and preserve the security of our children. And their children. We can obliterate the nation of Suthdal.”

  Keturah was silent for a moment. “Husband,” she said softly, leaving the word there for a moment as an exclamation. “When you spoke of this after Harstathur, I did not think you were serious. And since then the rumours have been that this will be an avenging raid. Sow some fear, collect some loot, train the young legionaries, make the Sutherners think twice before they cross the Abus again… If our people realise you intend to stay… To eradicate Suthdal and, what? What then?”

  “Return it to the wild,” said Roper. “Create a new homeland in the south.”

  Keturah seemed to have so many questions she was not sure where to start. “And what of the Sutherners who occupy it?”

  “They’ll work for us for a time and be forbidden from making weapons. But as their land returns to wilderness, they’ll have to leave. There is no place for them in the wild.”

  “But people will think that’s insane! Spending decades south of the Abus in alien lands, how would we even do it? As you say, we have seventy thousand legionaries. That is not enough to subdue the millions inhabiting the south! People would say it’s suicide, and they would have a point.”

  “The alternative to what I propose,” replied Roper, “is an even more inevitable suicide, and terrible irresponsibility. To leave an unsolvable problem for the next generation. Be complicit in the slow decline of our people. We are responsible, whether through action or inaction, and at least by action we give ourselves a chance. We should have done this years ago, in truth, but we have one last chance to roll the dice. Is this not my role? You say I don’t think about the small things. Perhaps you’re right. But I think about the biggest things, which others don’t seem to notice beyond their focus on sheep and fresh summer clothes.”

  Keturah looked incredulous and, for once, lost for words. Then she shook herself abruptly. “But, Husband, all you say is irrelevant anyway, you don’t have the authority for this. You know how people would react to the thought of being in alien lands for decades. The tribunes and councillors would be appalled
. The legates might just about back you, though only because they love campaigning and you have a bit of a reputation with them. Some would undoubtedly think it’s madness, though. The Academy would speak out against it, which would make your legionaries exceptionally nervous; the Lothbroks would love any excuse to destabilise you, and the Hindrunn women would almost certainly make life exceptionally difficult if they knew about it.”

  The streets of the Black Kingdom were dominated by women. Property was shared on marriage as a reflection of the partnership that husband and wife had become, and transferred to one in the event of the other’s death. Legionaries died with such regularity that the vast majority of property and wealth was controlled by women, leaving them a powerful and influential group, and one with whom Roper’s popularity was not high. From their perspective, removed from campaigns and confronted with Roper’s civil and domestic ineptitude, he was not a capable leader.

  “And Almighty alone knows what the Kryptea would make of this,” Keturah added. “You trying to subdue millions with seventy thousand legionaries. Jokul will blow an eyeball.”

  “I will find a way,” said Roper, calmly. “It has to be done. It has to. All those groups and factions you mention have to be brought to heel, because otherwise we are doomed. We have no choice. Do you not agree?”

  It was one of those rare occasions, Roper had witnessed just a few times, that Keturah’s face bore no hint of amusement. She just stared down at the road before her, brow furrowed. “I find myself torn between your case for its necessity and its obvious impossibility. But I am your wife. I regret I find you more convincing than most will.”

  Roper smiled faintly.

  “Who knows about this?” she asked suddenly.

  “I told you and Gray weeks ago,” said Roper. “Though it seems you did not take me seriously. No one, other than that.”

  “Right,” she said abruptly. “Keep it that way.”