The night was cool, with the promise of autumn in the air. Emly stopped and sniffed the night scents, of earth and iron and horses, and distant corpses. She felt the power of the land rising through the soles of her boots, thrilling through her limbs. She was stronger than she had ever been, and she revelled in the freedom of the dark. She checked the long knife scabbarded at her waist. Then she climbed on to Blackbird and, with Patience on a leading rein, heeled her mount back towards the battlefield.
‘Indaro would do this thing,’ Broglanh said indistinctly round a mouthful of dried meat. ‘She wasn’t as strong as a man and couldn’t behead one with a single blow. So she’d pivot …’ he circled one finger as he swallowed, ‘she’d turn on her heel and spin right round, twice sometimes, and scream and take his head off. Like you see an axeman do.’
‘And her opponent would just stand there?’ Stern asked sceptically. ‘What would he do while he waited, burnish his weapon?’
Quora sniggered, and Broglanh grinned amiably. ‘She was fast, like a whirling demon. You’ve no idea.’
Stalker agreed, nodding his big head sagely. ‘She was a mighty warrior.’
Stern looked at the two men, both as mighty as any he’d seen, talking about this Indaro as though she were a warrior of legend.
‘What happened to her?’ he asked.
Broglanh shrugged, chewing, and Stalker glanced at him then said, ‘She met someone.’
Stern nodded. It was a familiar enough tale. Women could be lethal fighters. They were as tough as men, some of them, they were fast and agile and many, like Quora, were wedded to the life. But some, well, they just bided their time waiting for a man to come along, someone who’d take them out of the life and be their protector. This Indaro, admired though she was by her two comrades, sounded like one of those – flighty.
He took a bite of horsemeat. It was hard to chew, harder to swallow, but it was all they had left apart from some weevil bread. He looked around at the fifteen remaining Pigstickers, most uninjured, some with minor wounds, all of them wildly outnumbered. This day they would only live to tell the tale if the enemy suddenly decided to pack up and go home.
He wondered how Benet was. His brother had been dragged off the battlefield, a lance-head buried deep in his thigh, pouring blood, his face white and scared. It was a survivable injury, but only assuming the army itself survived to defend its wounded, and that seemed doubtful.
‘Benet’ll be all right,’ Quora told him, guessing his thoughts. ‘He’s lived through worse than this.’
She was wrong. They’d never been in a pickle as bad as this. But Stern nodded. He looked at her across the campfire. Quora was propped on one elbow, gazing at him. His eyes travelled over the curve of her hip, the swell of her breasts. She watched him watching her and her dark eyes shone in the firelight. He thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful. Warmth moved in his loins and he casually rolled over on to his belly.
Stalker was looking at him, picking gristle from his teeth. ‘Your brother is he?’
Stern nodded.
‘Blind as a mole,’ the northlander said. ‘I wouldn’t trust him.’
‘He wasn’t blind when we started out,’ Stern retorted, stung by the criticism. ‘We didn’t ask for this.’
‘Didn’t you? You chose soldiering as a life, lad. You’re not from the City, but you both chose to fight for her.’
Her. Stern had never heard the City spoken of as a female before. Stalker was watching him, his eyes the colour of fog on water.
‘Why do you suppose I’m not of the City?’ Stern asked. I’m as loyal as any of its sons, he thought.
Stalker shrugged. ‘You have the look of sea folk.’
Stern wondered who had told him. ‘My father was a City soldier.’
‘I thought your father was a fisherman,’ Quora put in.
‘He was,’ he told her, a tad annoyed. ‘But originally he came from the City. Barenna.’ He did not want to explain to these veterans that his father had left the army after ten years’ service, back in the day when it was possible for a soldier to quit while he was still alive and relatively uninjured.
‘What was his name?’ Stalker asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’
The northlander shrugged. ‘No reason.’ He lay back, arranged his ginger braids in a knot to form a pillow, and closed his eyes. Within moments he was snoring.
Stalker was a bit of a mystery. A refugee from some mercenary unit demolished by the Blues, he’d joined the Wildcats the year before and survived the massacre of the Maritime at Salaba, then somehow found himself in the Red Palace on the Day of Summoning. He’d survived that too, then turned up here with a bunch of riders and, like Broglanh, he’d abandoned the doubtful safety of a horse to stand with the grunts. He and Broglanh had not met before, but they had friends in common and in the last two days of fighting they’d bonded like brothers. Stern was glad to have them both standing with him, but he was still suspicious of the northlander. He seemed to have miraculously survived when thousands died. Not once, but over and over. In Stern’s experience, that pointed to a soldier who ducked out of the worst of the fighting, emerging again once it was over. But could that be true of Stalker, who threw himself into each battle with gusto? He was certainly not a coward – but what was he?
Suddenly Broglanh dropped the horse jerky he was eating and rolled on his hip and cocked his head, listening. Then he jumped up, grabbing his helm and sword-belt, and kicked Stalker into wakefulness.
‘They’re coming!’ he roared.
There were no red lights and explosions this day; perhaps the enemy thought they were no longer necessary. The noise Broglanh could hear was like waves crashing on a pebble beach: the sound of thousands of warriors marching. In moments they advanced out of the fog, their banners of red and gold catching the rays of the rising sun. The drums rolled and as one they started chanting, ‘Death! Death! Death!’, crashing their swords against their shields as they advanced.
They filled the sight, they filled the heart and mind. All the City’s soldiers could think was, How can there still be so many? We have killed and killed and killed, yet still they come. On and on the chant went, shredding the warriors’ nerves as they hastily adjusted armour, hefted swords and spears, tried to spit the dryness from their mouths.
When the barbarians were fifty paces away Stalker let out a roar and ran at them, his great broadsword in one hand, a Pigsticker spear in the other. In a heartbeat the others leaped after him. With Broglanh at his left shoulder, Stern on his right, the big northlander smashed into the enemy ranks, impaling one warrior on the spear and crushing a man’s throat with the broadsword. The rest of the City forces surged forward bellowing their battle cries, then war cries gave way to the screams of the wounded.
Stern gutted one warrior, then he parried a blow from a second, backhanding his shield into the man’s face. Quora sliced the man’s throat.
‘Stalker’s gone mad!’ she yelled.
Stalker was cleaving deep into the enemy ranks, cutting and stabbing, careless of a lethal vacuum building behind him. Stern and Quora hurled themselves into the breach and, for a moment, the barbarians fell back. Then a huge man in a bronze helm came running at Stalker, sword raised. The northlander parried the blow and reversed a cut to the man’s neck. The great blade hammered against the mail vest and snapped. Dropping the hilt, Stalker grabbed the enemy’s mail shirt and pulled him forward, butting him savagely then crashing his fist into the man’s face. Broglanh, fighting to his right, threw him a sword. Stalker caught it and the blade sliced through the back of his enemy’s neck.
As the battle raged there were no more battle cries from the front lines, only the groans of the dying and the grim determination of the living to survive. The City warriors were being forced back, but the barbarians had to climb a wall of their own dead, slippery with blood and brains and entrails, to get at them.
Stern staggered as an axe-blade smashed his shield. Pigging
axemen, he hated them. They needed room to swing, else they were more lethal to their comrades than to the enemy. But once they had you in their eyeline … Stern would rather have faced two swordsmen together. He pulled out his long knife. The axeman swung again, missing Stern but pulverizing his sword. Agony speared through his arm, but he feinted with the knife then dodged to his left and crashed his fist into the man’s throat. The axeman staggered, gasping for breath, and in the same moment Broglanh sliced his sword under the man’s helm and into the back of the spine.
Stern nodded his thanks to Broglanh, then picked up an abandoned sword and hurled himself back into the melee.
As the sun moved on to the west the remaining City soldiers formed a wall, shields aligned against the next onslaught. Stalker had predicted the enemy would not use cannon, for those weapons would kill as many of their own in close combat and, besides, they’d not need them.
There was no bird song, no cooling whisper of breeze, only the creak of armour and the painful breathing of the wounded. As the men and women lined up snatches of prayers were muttered to the gods of ice and fire: ‘Guardians of valour, make a place for me in the Gardens of Stone if you judge my death to be honourable.’
Then the day suddenly came alive again. Screaming men ran into sight, hammering swords upon shields, roaring battle cries promising death and ruin. A wave of panic rippled through the last warriors of the City.
Broglanh, who was standing front and centre, told himself there was a solid wall behind him, a wall of iron and stone, and the only way was ahead. As the first barbarian reached him he flung himself forward, clouting the man’s sword aside with his shield, and pierced the enemy’s throat to the backbone. He hacked at the man to his right, diverting a hammer-blow aimed at Quora, then ducked behind his shield as a sword slashed at him from the left.
He cut, thrust and slashed at the oncoming soldiers, his focus on eyes and throats. On his right a City axeman hammered men into bloody ruin with his heavy weapon, his non-stop attack forming a heap of the dead before him. But they came on endlessly, pouring from the north and east, the men at the back jostling to get into the fray. Broglanh could hear their screams of frustration. One at a time, he muttered, don’t be so keen to die.
The front line of the enemy slipped and slithered over blood-covered bodies only to be cut down by the dwindling band of defenders. Time and again they swarmed forward, only to die on the swords of the City. But the City warriors’ strength was fading fast; they were leaden-legged and there would soon come a time when they would break … The mood swept among the barbarians and their battle cries rose again.
Slowly the shield wall was forced back towards the abyss; even Broglanh lost a pace, then two then three. For each of their dead there were two or more of the enemy, but they knew they could not last. Yet there were no deserters.
Broglanh looked around. The last City warriors had forgotten all their fears. Hardened veterans, they fought with cold eyes, giving each of their lives hard. To his left Stern had discarded his shield and was fighting with sword and long knife. Blood ran from a wound in his scalp, but his face was set. Broglanh realized he could no longer see Stalker. He had not seen him die or seen his body, but the northlander had disappeared, his place taken by a lanky woman with blood smeared across her face who screamed her battle cry as she demolished each opponent.
The day wore on and the shield wall collapsed slowly in on itself, its dwindling band of soldiers protected by the wall of the dead. Through swollen eyes Broglanh saw the battle in glimpses, bright flashes of red: Quora darting and stabbing like a gladiator, tireless; Stern, one arm useless and tucked into his belt, battling on with a blunted sword.
Pace by bloody pace they were pushed back, and thoughts of aid were far from his mind. In truth, Broglanh no longer cared. This was to be his last battle, the final and ultimate truth for any warrior – facing death with a blade drenched in the blood of his enemies. Time stopped, and fatigue was just a memory.
Finally there were ten of them, then five. Quora fell, hit by a savage blow to her helm. Stern went down. The enemy paused and waited.
Broglanh stood gasping, his body and face drenched in gore, holding two dripping swords at the ready. He looked around. He stood alone. He looked down at himself and saw some of the blood was his own. Quite a lot of it.
He knew it was the end, and he felt only satisfaction. He thought of his mother, her braids streaming behind her as she rode to face the enemy. She would have fought to the last, however the end came. He hoped she would have been proud of him.
He stared at the enemy. They stood waiting. He wondered what they were waiting for. He heard the bark of orders, the murmuring of anger in their ranks. He felt a spark of anger too. He was ready. What were they waiting for?
‘C’mon, you pussies!’ he roared in frustration.
There were shouts from among the enemy, but no one moved.
Then he heard the thunder of hooves, and saw the eyes of the men opposing him drift beyond him. He turned and saw, galloping along the very edge of the cliff, two horses heading straight for him.
He stared for a moment, dumbfounded. Fatigue and blood-loss made his brain slow. But I’m ready, he argued with his fate. I can die now with honour. It’s my time.
‘Evan!’ Emly yelled, and in that heartbeat he grasped the chance of life. He staggered towards them, his strength gone, his legs lead.
Wrapping the reins in her fist, Emly dragged the heaving gelding to a halt. She slid off and, glancing fearfully over her shoulder at the enemy army, helped Broglanh up on to the warhorse. Patience snorted and set straight off, back the way he’d come as if under orders. Emly mounted quickly and raced after them, low in the saddle, fearing enemy arrows.
After a few moments she turned and looked back. The enemy had not moved.
To get to the battlefield she had followed the line of the cliff, trying to stay furthest from the fighting. She could always tell where it was by the clouds of carrion birds circling. Now she followed the same path back, along the line of the abyss, vaguely aware that there might be a shorter way but feeling safest with what she knew.
She glanced anxiously at Evan. He was conscious, holding the reins, leaning on the pommel, bowed over as if in great pain. It had started to rain lightly and she saw the blanket under the warhorse’s saddle was gradually darkening with a mixture of rain and blood. Her heart in her mouth, she urged Blackbird closer to Patience, ready to halt both horses if he looked like falling.
On her ride to the battlefield she had noted a possible hiding-place, a spot where the cliff-edge dipped into a grassy hollow edged by wind-hardy brush. She watched out for it anxiously, scanning the way ahead, trying to remember where it was, glancing at Evan, wondering if he could hold on much longer. At last, when she had convinced herself she had passed the place and missed it, her eyes alighted on it, or rather the contorted, leafless bushes which fringed it. She reined in Blackbird and called to Patience who dropped into a trot then circled obediently back to her. She slid off her mount and grabbed the other’s reins, then walked them down into the grassy hollow. There the air was still and warm, and suddenly very quiet after the thrumming of hooves and the whistling of wind.
She hauled Evan off his horse and he collapsed at her feet. She helped him lie back on the grass. His face was a mask of blood on one side and she wiped some of it away to reveal a deep angry gash in his forehead, down to his left cheekbone, the skin so purpled and swollen that his eye had sunk out of view.
‘Where else are you injured?’ she whispered, for his clothes were ripped in many places and seemed dipped in blood.
He grasped his side and she lifted his shirt and saw the deep, bloody furrow where a lance had ripped through his flesh. A hand’s width over and he’d have been disembowelled. The wound was leaking steadily and she hoped the flow would cease once he was lying down. There were plenty of other cuts on his arms and chest and a bruise the size of her head across his stomach, but the o
nly other deep wound was on the outside of his right thigh. This was pouring blood and she thought it was the first she should bandage.
She looked up to check if he was conscious and saw one pale eye watching her.
‘Are we safe?’ he murmured.
She nodded vehemently. ‘Safe as a general,’ she told him, his own expression.
‘My pack.’
She stood to unhitch his pack from the horse and brought it to him. With bloody fingers he struggled with a strap.
‘Let me.’ She undid it. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Bag,’ he whispered, lying back, hardly capable of speech.
‘This?’ She showed him a soft leather bag tied with twine. In it was Broglanh’s medical gear: old bandages and needles and a coil of grimy thread.
‘Pills,’ he said.
In the bottom of the bag was a waterproof package. She opened it and found some black pills, like rabbit pellets, she thought, covered in grey dust. She looked at him doubtfully.
‘One,’ he said.
She gave him one and he swallowed it. She found her last remaining water skin and made him drink, then he laid his head back and was instantly asleep.
She dressed his worst wounds as best she could, relieved to see the flows of blood had slowed. Then she tethered the horses at a spot where they could crop from tussocks of thick grass. She regretted she could not unsaddle them, but they all might have to flee at any moment. Lying down by Evan’s side, she felt his warmth against her, and pulled her thin blanket over them both. She prayed that the gods of ice and fire, merciless deities, would overlook their little nest, just two small people when tens of thousands were dead and dying on the battlefield that night. For a long while she lay tensed in the darkness, listening for sinister sounds, the threat of evil men moving in the land. She could hear nothing but the horses placidly munching, and finally she fell asleep.
The Immortal Throne (2016) Page 36
