The Immortal Throne (2016)

by Stella Gemmell

  Hammarskjald, lord of the barbarian army called the Hratana, stood at the lip of the hollow and stared down on the sleeping girl. It had astonished him when he had first seen her, how like her brother she was. He had wondered if they were twins. And he wondered who their ascendants were, which of the first Serafim had that heart-shaped face which confronted the world down the generations through a pure bloodline. He could no longer remember. How many generations had it been?

  He had allowed himself to grow fond of Elija last year against his best intentions, and now little Emly had crept in, like a thief in the night, and taken his heart too. He would see they both remained safe, if it was within his control and if everything went according to plan.

  The soldier, though … Broglanh was an extraordinary warrior and Hammarskjald had been content to fight by his side. But if the man survived this day, he knew with certainty he would have to kill him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  WHEN EMLY AWOKE it was night and the moon cast long shadows on the quiet land. Her first thought was to check Broglanh was still breathing. She stilled herself, and at last felt the slow rise and fall of his ribs. Then she noticed a strange smell – the smell of cooking. She sat up with a jerk, her heart hammering, and saw the outline of a figure squatting over a small campfire, stirring something in a pot. She grasped the long knife at her waist, hand trembling.

  ‘Be still, girl. It’s only me.’

  ‘Stalker!’ She was so relieved she felt giddy. ‘How did you find us?’ she whispered loudly, crawling across to join him.

  He waved a spoon at Patience. ‘That big beast of yours has hoof-prints a blind man could follow.’

  ‘But how did you escape the battle?’

  ‘I must have been knocked on the head,’ he said sheepishly, avoiding her eyes. ‘When I awoke I was under a pile of cadavers and I could see you and your man riding off.’

  ‘What of the others, Stern and Quora?’

  He shook his head. ‘All dead, lass. They were badly outnumbered. How’s Broglanh?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, the concern in his voice stabbing her heart. Tears welled painfully in her eyes. ‘He has many injuries. I fear he’s gravely hurt.’

  ‘I’ll have a look when we’ve eaten. Don’t worry yourself. He’s strong.’

  ‘What is that?’ In the moonlight she could not see what he was stirring in the small pot, but it smelled vile.

  ‘Oatmeal,’ he said. ‘Good for you, and for him if he can eat. There’s some burnt in it,’ he admitted, peering at it.

  There was a lot of burnt in it, but Emly felt the virtue of the oats fill her belly and soothe her mind. Stalker had brought water and she drank her fill, marvelling at his resourcefulness, alone and horseless in enemy territory. She was so relieved to be with him; she felt there was nothing this big man could not do.

  After they had eaten he examined Evan’s wounds, sniffing them as soldiers will while Em watched and worried. He sloshed water over Evan’s bruised face so he could properly see his damaged eye, and he felt the bones of his head.

  ‘He’s deeply asleep,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘He ate one of these.’ Em scrambled to find the black pellets and showed them to the northlander.

  Stalker squinted at them then snorted. ‘He’ll sleep all day on one of those. Two would have killed him.’ He beetled his thick brows, then shrugged. ‘He did the right thing, I suppose,’ he said and Em felt reassured.

  Then he told her, ‘Get some sleep, girl. We might have to make a run for it come the morning and we want you fresh.’

  But when dawn came it seemed like a dark omen. The skyline was bright orange and red, barred with lowering black clouds like a striped cat. It seemed threatening and Stalker frowned at it.

  ‘The weather’s going to break,’ he said. ‘That might favour us. Stay here. I’ll scout about.’

  He set off on Patience but within moments, it seemed, returned with news that they could move east once Broglanh awoke. The enemy were all to the west, and for a moment nothing was moving.

  ‘We should warn the camp-followers,’ Em said.

  ‘They’ll’ve already moved on,’ Stalker assured her. ‘They know which way the wind’s blowing. None of their menfolk came back after the battle, so they’ll be making for home. You’ll be off after them.’

  ‘Evan wanted me away from the City,’ she told him. ‘He said it wasn’t safe.’

  ‘I guessed that, lass, but I don’t know why.’ Stalker was searching through Broglanh’s pack, looking for something.

  Evan had sworn her to secrecy about their reasons for fleeing, but Emly was tempted to tell Stalker, who had saved her life. She hesitated.

  ‘Is this all your goods?’ he asked and she nodded. He shook his head. ‘Your needles are blunt as corks. We’ll search the first carcasses we see.’

  ‘Evan wanted to take me along the coast of Petrus to Arocir,’ she told him. The big man paused what he was doing and gazed into her face, watching the hesitation there. Finally she added, ‘But that way is barred to us. And he cannot return to the City.’

  ‘Ay, you’re caught between the anvil and the hammer,’ Stalker said, climbing up to the edge of the hollow and looking around. He seemed full of energy despite being in a terrible battle only the day before.

  ‘I just want to keep him safe,’ she sighed, close to sobs.

  ‘We need to stay clear of that army,’ he said, staring down at her. ‘That’s for today. Broglanh, if he lives, can decide another day where you’ll go.’

  She nodded fervently, trying to stop the brimming tears. She felt more terrified than she had in the ravine when attacked by the Fkeni, for now she had Evan to worry about as well as herself. She was adrift in a foreign land, far from home, and she had no idea who was trying to kill her or why.

  ‘Who are they?’ she asked Stalker, gazing up at him. ‘Evan says they’re not Blues. Are they northlanders, like you?’ she asked shyly, afraid of offending him.

  He laughed, and the merry sound lifted her spirits a little. ‘Ay, they’re northlanders. But the Blues, as you call them, are also northlanders. Every foreigner is a northlander to City folk. The City is as far south as most people live. To the south of her are high mountains and a bit of hot coast then fiery deserts where neither man nor beast can survive. All that’s left is north.’

  ‘Are they allies of the Blues?’

  He grabbed a water skin and emptied it into a pan for the horses to drink from. ‘They’re not. The Petrassi have fought them for generations. They thought they’d seen them off, but these fellows were just biding their time, building up their forces while the Petrassi had their backs turned fighting the City.’

  ‘What happened to the Petrassi army, the one which returned before General Khan’s army rode north?’

  ‘Destroyed, lass. They had no idea what hit them. And,’ he added, nodding his head southwards, ‘your empress has a nasty shock coming.’ He grinned, seeming unworried, indeed entertained by the idea.

  Emly trembled and she wrapped her arms around herself. She had not thought beyond this day. ‘You mean,’ she asked, ‘they’ll attack the City?’

  ‘I would,’ he told her. ‘Low on manpower, defences down, full of sick and wounded. I would,’ he repeated and his eyes were twinkling.

  Emly felt hollow inside. She was afraid of returning to the City, but even more afraid that she could never return. What would she do? And what would she do if Evan died? She bit hard on her lip, bringing blood.

  As if he heard her thoughts, he said calmly, ‘I’ll see you get to safety.’

  She tried to smile, to show gratitude for his kindness, though Stalker seemed scarcely to take their plight seriously. He was just one man, however strong, and Evan said the mightiest of men could be brought low by a big enough enemy, or by one stray arrow.

  ‘Who are they, this army?’ she asked again. ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Hratana, or Free Men in your tongue. They have
no possessions, except what they carry as they march, and they hate you City folk. They believe the City is a rotting midden and despise her people for their soft ways and profane beliefs. And they are lured by promises of its treasure.’

  ‘Treasure?’

  ‘It is named the City of Gold in most foreign lands. Many believe its palaces are made of pure gold and its people walk the streets clad in gems. The Hratana’s leaders encourage that belief.’

  Emly thought of the people of the City, the desperate and the hungry, the Dwellers in the Halls and the sick and poor old folk in the rookeries of Lindo.

  Stalker added, ‘They are a terrible enemy. They will roll over the City, killing and burning. The empress has not the might or the will to stop them.’

  ‘But the walls …?’ Em said, horrified.

  He snorted. ‘The walls! The walls travel for hundreds of leagues, enclosing City streets and farmland, even the empty lands of the north. They are a folly, built by a fool. But they are high and broad and built with a skill that is lost now. The Hratana will not bother with the walls. They will attack the Great Gates, for there the City is weakest. They will not last long. The Hratana can destroy them, blasting them to smithereens with a power of which the City knows nothing.’

  ‘But Evan said they were barbarians. Many of them don’t even have swords, he said.’

  Stalker grunted. ‘The Hratana are barbarians. Your man is right. But their leaders aren’t.’ His eyes gleamed as he said it and she thought she saw satisfaction in his face.

  He wandered over to check Evan’s wounds. Em wondered once again how Stalker knew all he did, about an enemy no one else from the City seemed to know about. Evan had said he was a mercenary. She assumed he had travelled widely and fought with and against many peoples. She had heard him say that everywhere he went he was a foreigner.

  It was only later in the day, once Evan had woken and they’d got him on to a horse and started slowly moving east, that Em remembered the Gulon Veil. Evan’s new jacket had disappeared somewhere on the battlefield, the veil within it. Not for the first time, she wondered about its healing gift. If she had it she could try to mend Evan’s wounds. But it was gone. She put it behind her and for a long while forgot about it altogether.

  Among their endless array of deities, City people respect the death gods above all. They are many and various, including the seven gods of ice and fire who mark the seven stages of death and dying for a soldier. And there is Aduara, who watches over the death of women in childbirth, and Vashta, goddess of night, who brings down darkness to comfort the dying. Only Elenchus, the god who guards the way to the Gardens of Stone, is in any way a benevolent deity for, two-faced, he chooses the virtuous over the sinner, in the terms of the warrior’s creed, and welcomes the hero while turning his grim face to cowards and deserters.

  Stern Edasson was a pious man. As he lay waiting for death he spoke to Elenchus and appealed to him to welcome him into the Gardens of Stone and to find a place also for his brother and for Quora. Stern had no doubt Benet was dead for the battle had been lost, and they were far from home, and by now the victorious enemy would have overrun the casualty stations and would soon see off all the injured, including Stern himself. He lay trapped in a tangle of dead warriors, many of whom he’d known, and could not move. He was bathed in gore and his whole body hurt, but he could not even lift his head to see what was wrong with him. Besides, it hardly mattered now. He could not pray for a swift death, for that would mean death at enemy hands, and he could not wish for that: it was heretical, however grim the alternative.

  What Stern did not know was that this new army, this unsuspected, overwhelming force whom the City warriors called barbarians, had different customs from those of either City or Blues. Once the battle was won they left the field, leaving behind their own wounded to fend for themselves and taking no time to despatch enemy injured. Their generals were in a hurry, it was true, but it was also part of their religion, for they too had a death god and this god required the agonized song of a lingering death.

  When he heard the sound of approaching boots above the groans of the dying Stern guessed his time had come and he closed his eyes, hoping to see his brother when he had passed beyond the bonds of mortality. And when he heard Benet calling he believed his death had been swift and merciful.

  ‘Stern! Brother!’

  Benet’s voice was raw and gravelly as though he had worn it out shouting. Stern opened his eyes again, unwilling to trust his luck. He cried, ‘Benet! I’m here! Here!’

  There was a scuffle of bootsteps and Benet shouted again and Stern answered urgently. He struggled to move under the pile of corpses, fear suddenly lancing through him, fear that his brother would go past him, not see him, and Stern would be left to die and rot among the rotting dead.

  Then Benet was beside him, dragging bodies off, freeing Stern’s legs then his arms. His chest rose and he sucked in a chestful of stinking air and tried to sit up, desperate to be free of the cadavers. Suddenly his body was in agony and the corpses around him misted and blurred.

  ‘You all right?’ Benet asked anxiously.

  Stern breathed slowly and the pain started to pass. ‘Too soon to tell,’ he answered.

  ‘Where are you hurt?’ Benet said, his brow furrowed. ‘Your head, it’s all bloody.’ He pushed back Stern’s hair, looking for a wound.

  Stern tried to lift his right hand to feel his head himself then was reminded, painfully, that the shoulder had been dislocated in the final battle.

  ‘Shoulder,’ he said.

  As Benet twisted his arm to jerk it into place, Stern looked at him, trying to hold on to consciousness. His brother was covered with gore, like all of them, with a muddy bandage over the lance-wound in his thigh, but he seemed strong.

  ‘What happened?’ Benet asked.

  ‘We need to get away from here,’ Stern said, as his brother tore a dead man’s shirt to make a sling. ‘They’ll be coming soon.’

  ‘They’ve gone,’ Benet told him.

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘After the battle. They marched off. All of them. I saw them go. They’re in a hurry.’

  ‘How did you survive?’

  ‘The surgeon pulled the lance out, that was a horror, stitched my leg. I was told to rest but I was about to come back when the enemy overran the casualty station. They were busy killing the helpless, so I got away.’

  He was grinning at his escape, careless of the slaughter of others. ‘We’re City men,’ he said. ‘We’re strong.’

  Not so strong in the head, Stern thought.

  ‘They saw me but didn’t bother to chase me, just one soldier,’ Benet went on. ‘I climbed down the cliff, into the … you know … the gorge. I was afraid all the time I’d slip, hanging on to roots and plants. Others tried too. I saw them fall. It’s a long way to fall, screaming all the way.’ He shook his head. ‘Then I never thought I’d be able to climb back up again. But I did. And the enemy were marching away. I could see the rear, the baggage carts. They left their dying and ours. I found food and water. They were in a great hurry.’

  Stern got to his feet shakily and looked around. In three directions was a sea of dead and dying men and women. The familiar stench of blood and burst entrails hung on the air. To the west, just twenty paces away, was the edge of the Vorago.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Benet, happy to have his brother make the decisions.

  ‘See if there’s any more like us, walking wounded.’ Stern coughed and spat. ‘And find some water.’

  ‘There’s a barrelful the enemy left. It’s leaking but not much.’

  Stern shook his head in wonder. ‘Any horses?’ he asked hopefully.

  Benet frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Stern clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Can you see all right?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘Then we’ll split up. You search over there,’ he pointed to the north and east, ‘and I’ll go over here.’

  ‘W
hat are we looking for?’

  ‘Friends, comrades. Quora, Stalker, Broglanh. Injured or dead. Anyone who can walk and hold a sword.’

  ‘And if they can’t?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘And enemy wounded?’

  ‘Let them rot.’

  There is always a time, between the slipping away from the agony of mortal wounds and the coming of the enfolding wings of death, a time of clarity, when one’s life can be seen for what it was and, sometimes cruelly, for what it might have been.

  Marcus Rae Khan was a powerful man, with all the strength and endurance of a second-generation Serafim, but even his body could not survive the deep cuts and gouges of the flesh which were leaking his lifeblood, slowly but inexorably, into the churned earth of this foreign field. He was struggling to breathe and he tried to draw in a deep draught, but agony stabbed through him and he thought he screamed, though all he heard was a feeble cry. He opened his eyes to see the hilt of the sword which drove through his chest and into the earth below. He took little sips of breath, feeling the blade grate against his ribs. He rolled his head, trying to see the enemy, but he could find none but the dead. Something moved in his chest, giving way, and he knew he was a heartbeat from death.

  But in that last brief instant he was content with his life. He had had sons – and daughters, his schooled mind added obediently – and grandsons and descendants too numerous to know or, indeed, care about. Perhaps, he thought with a brief flaring of curiosity, it was one of those who had dealt the fatal blow, whichever that was.

  He thought back to the earliest years, as he often did, when their initial trials were over and their enemies vanquished and their first, magnificent palace built and they were gods among men. Golden lads … golden lads … his mind stuttered, the cells dying, the synapses failing to snap. Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers come to dust. Golden dust, he amended, visualizing his mortal remains flung to the four winds, a last golden sparkle of defiance in the dark. He could not remember whose the quote was. Giulia would know.

  He hoped he had been right to back Araeon, among all those golden lads and girls so long ago. He and Marcellus backing Araeon to the hilt, always faithful, always true down the long years. Well, until the last few years. Among all of them, all now dead. He had always been a simple fellow, but he still thought Araeon had been largely right, even though it ended so badly.