Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  But when they mustered for alagai’sharak, as all Sharum must on Waning, they did not follow the usual path they took to sweep the alagai from the town environs, flitting invisibly in their black robes to places where they might ambush the coming chin.

  “When fire shrieks thrice across the sky, you must strike,” Asavi had told Jayan that morning after reading the dice. The power of the alagai hora was shown once more as a line of fire whined into the sky with a shriek that could be heard for miles.

  The chin flamework was mirrored by another streaking missile from the surface of the lake. A third lit the sky to the south where Sharu had taken his dal’Sharum.

  In the distance, he heard the Horn of Sharak, and he felt a thrill pass through him. For better or worse, the battle had come.

  On cue, roaring fires sprang up in the sling baskets of dozens of Laktonian warships moving swiftly for the shallows. Mehnding crews went to work immediately, but they were still getting the range when flames began to arc through the air. Khevat stopped his pacing to watch the streaking missiles, trepidation on his normally impassive face.

  Abban was unconcerned. His engineers and Warders had secured the building, bricking alagai corpses into the walls to power the wards. A crude imitation of dama’ting hora magic, but effective enough. Boulders would bounce off the walls like pebbles, and no flame could touch them. Even smoke would turn to a fresh breeze before it drifted inside. The whole town could be laid to ruin, but his warehouse would remain unscathed.

  He had barely entertained the thought before the Laktonians tried to make it reality. In the past they had restricted bombardment to the beaches and docks, but tonight’s missiles ranged farther, blasting through buildings and setting fires throughout town.

  “The first night of Waning,” Khevat growled, “and they would burn women and children from their wards!”

  “I suppose it is fitting,” Abban said. “We gave little thought to their holy day of first snow when we took the town, and I’ve seen what Sharum do to women and children.”

  “Chin women and children,” Khevat said. “Unbelievers outside Everam’s light.”

  Abban shrugged. “Perhaps. Fools, in any event, if they believe there is profit attacking on Waning.”

  Khevat grunted. “Even if they somehow manage to win the battle, the Damaji will not stand for it. They will empty Everam’s Bounty of warriors and kill a thousand chin for every Sharum lost.”

  Briar watched as Thamos bent, putting match to the paper tube he stuck in the ground.

  The archers had been ready for them, but there were not enough to stop the charge of Thamos’ armored cavalry. If the Krasians had positioned too many men atop the hill, they would have shown their hand too soon. They left the men on the hill to die.

  The fuse sparked to life and the rocket took of with a great shriek, leaving a tail of red fire in the sky behind it. Briar’s eyes widened as he tracked its flight. His mother made toss bangs for festival days, but this was flamework like he had only heard tale of. To the south and east, other rockets rose in response, signaling the readiness of the forces to attack.

  “They’re beautiful,” he said.

  “Leesha Paper made them for a different new moon.” Thamos’ voice was distant, sad. “I’ve seen flamework fail many times, but not hers. Never hers.” He put two fingers into the seam of his breastplate as if to reassure himself something was there.

  “I wonder what the Gatherer would think,” Sament said, “knowing her flamework heralds such bloodshed.”

  Thamos turned to him, eyes ready to fight, but a horn sounded below them, stealing both men’s attention. The count took a deep breath, seeming to deflate as he let it out.

  He put a foot in his stirrup, swinging himself into the saddle. “It is too late to worry what women think.”

  He lifted his spear. “Archers! Kill anything that moves on the docks until the ships are in! Fire at will!”

  Briar ran for one of the great stones by the road, climbing quickly and putting his belly to the rock as he looked out over the approaching forces.

  “What do you see?” Thamos asked, riding close.

  Colan’s Rise was sheer rock on three sides, with only one rock-strewn road leading to its top. “Too much cover to shoot,” Briar said. “They’re charging on foot. Archers held behind.”

  “To be fresh and ready when they retake the hill,” Thamos said. “If they manage it, they can rain arrows on the docks as the Laktonians deploy.”

  Briar moved to climb down, but Thamos checked him with a pointed finger. “Stay right there, Briar. This is soldier’s business.”

  “My home,” Briar growled. “My fight, too.”

  Thamos nodded. “But you fight in ways others cannot, Briar. You alone can escape this hill, and make sure others know what happened here.” He reached into his armor, removing a folded bit of paper.

  “You alone can get this to Leesha, if I do not live through the night.”

  Briar felt his throat tighten as he took the paper. He liked the count, but there were many Sharum coming.

  Too many.

  Thamos gave a wild cry, kicking his mare and leading the charge down the road.

  Briar felt a surge of hope, watching the heavy horses. He had expected the charge to slow when they reached the Sharum spears, but the Wooden Soldiers and their horses wore lightweight wooden armor strengthened by warded lacquer. They turned the enemy spears even as the giant mustang mowed the men like grass, leaving nothing but bloody clippings behind.

  But as they reached the base of the hill, great lights flared as the Krasians put fire to bowls of oil. Mirrors caught and angled the light as the horses came into the sights of the enemy archers. They launched indiscriminately into the press of warriors, heedless of their own men in the line of fire.

  Arrows began to find seams and weaknesses in the Wooden Soldiers’ armor. Men screamed and horses reared in pain, even as enemy troops moved to surround them on the open ground.

  Thamos gave a signal and his cavalry turned like a flock of birds to race back to the high ground.

  It was a temporary respite, but already the Sharum gained ground, and more warriors were flowing up the hill. In the oil lights Briar could see their robes were not black or tan, but green.

  That explained why their commander was so willing to waste their lives taking the hill. They were not Krasian at all, but Rizonan men pressed into service. They would do the bleeding, and then their masters would take the hill.

  Briar remembered Icha, remembered the sympathy he had felt for the man under the torturer’s screws. That treatment had been cruel, and wrong, and pointless. But it was nothing compared to what the enemy was willing to do.

  Briar knew then that nothing would stop the Krasians from taking Colan’s Rise. He rubbed his fingers against the paper the count had given him. If he was to escape, it had to be soon.

  The main road was too dangerous, so Briar moved to the far side of the bluff to scale down the sheer walls. With his climbing skills and the blacks he still wore, he could go where others could not.

  Or so he thought.

  At first Briar rubbed his eyes, thinking they were playing tricks on him. His night vision was strong, honed by a lifetime living in the darkness, but even it had limits.

  He froze, straining against the dim starlight and the fires now raging on the waters below as Captain Dehlia and the others attacked the port.

  There it was again. Movement on the cliffs. All over the cliffs.

  There were dal’Sharum scaling Colan’s Rise, hundreds of them.

  He scrambled the other way, racing through the archers. “Sharum on the cliffs! Sharum on the cliffs!”

  “I see one!” an archer called, firing down into the rocks. He must have missed, because he cursed, pulling another arrow.

  All around the bluff, archers were confirming the approaching warriors, taking their eyes from the docks as they attacked the closer targets. But the Sharum, black-clad and flat
against the steep slope, were difficult targets, and more arrows were wasted than Krasians killed.

  Thamos rode up to the sergeant in charge of the Laktonian archers. “Tell your men to stop wasting arrows and keep firing on those docks! I’m leaving a hundred horse to guard them.”

  “And the rest of us?” Sament asked, riding up next to him.

  Thamos pointed down the hill. “The rest of us are going to destroy the archers they have waiting to position here. They may take the rise, but they will not benefit from it.”

  He looked to Briar. “The chaos in our wake …”

  Briar nodded. It would be easy to slip away unnoticed with four hundred heavy horse as a distraction.

  The count gave a shout, kicking his horse before he had time to rethink his course. The Wooden Soldiers thundered down the hill, sweeping the chi’Sharum aside. Unlike previous sallies, they kept on as they reached open ground, heading straight for the ranks of elite dal’Sharum archers.

  The Krasians had not anticipated the move, but their surprise was short-lived, and they began to pepper the horsemen with a withering fire that thinned their ranks. The horses could not run in full armor, and as arrows began to find the gaps, they screamed and fell, often taking out neighbors in their fall.

  Still they picked up speed, and suddenly they were on top of the archers, laying about with cavalry spears as their great horses trampled and crushed. The bowmen had no defense, and were quickly overrun.

  Thamos led the attack, his spear a blur as his horse leapt to and fro. Sament rode close beside him.

  But as the archers were destroyed, the Krasian army moved in. These were not chi’Sharum, given spears and pressed into service. These were true Sharum, bred to battle and trained since childhood, many of them mounted themselves. They closed in from all sides, breaking Thamos’ ranks and shattering his ordered men into chaos.

  Still the battle raged. Sament kept close to Thamos, the two lords standing out in their bright armor. Sament batted a spear from Thamos’ path with his shield. Thamos skewered the man, then swung the Sharum’s body into the path of an enemy horse. Sament was ready, putting his spear into the rearing animal’s throat.

  They seemed to be dominating the field around them, but from a distance Briar could see they were being separated from their fellows. Herded.

  Briar knew he should flee. Should take his lead into the night and deliver news of the loss of the hill, and the letter to Leesha Paper.

  But he could not bring himself to go. He pulled up his Sharum veil and flitted from stone to stone, getting closer to the battle.

  Thamos and Sament fought their way into a ring, and suddenly found themselves in the clear. The dal’Sharum had circled an area of open ground.

  There in the center of the circle was the Krasian leader, Jayan, marked by his white turban and veil.

  “You fight well, greenlander,” Jayan called, raising his spear. “Shall we test your mettle against a true foe?”

  Abban took up his distance lens—another gift from the Damajah. His Warders had painstakingly taken the device apart, studying the design, the warding, and the shard of demon bone that powered it. It had not taken long to produce more of them, and all his ship captains, Qeran included, had them now.

  The device allowed him to see in Everam’s light—wardsight, the greenlanders called it. With it he could see the enemy ships as if they were right before him in bright day, with every hand illuminated and the wards on the their hulls glowing as if written in fire.

  The water was dark, all its drifting magic drawn to the ships’ wards, but underneath the surface Abban could see the glow of demons, drawn to the commotion. They circled like a whirlpool, waiting only for a gap in the wards to pull whole ships down to Nie’s embrace.

  On the docks and beach, the enemy slingers were taking a heavy toll. The demonfire was concentrated farther inland—the chin did not wish to destroy the docks. Their slinger baskets were filled with stones the size of a man’s fist, scattering to smash through fortifications, warriors, and engines alike. Scorpions added precise kills to the chaos, taking out shooters and kai when they stepped from cover.

  And still, the withering fire from Colan’s Rise.

  “They cannot hold,” Khevat said, pointing to galleys moving in behind the barrage, large enough to be seen in only the light of wards and fire. “The chin will overwhelm them when they land their forces.”

  “If they land, honored dama,” Abban said.

  Asavi appeared beside them, looking out onto the lake. Abban pretended to adjust his lens, stealing a glance at her through it. As he suspected, her many jewels glowed fiercely with magic, particularly the warded coins at her brow. No doubt she could see as well as he in the darkness.

  “Leave war to true men, khaffit,” Khevat said. “I was studying the conquests of Kaji before your father wore his bido. There is nothing the dal’Sharum can do to stop the landing. They will have to prevail on open ground.”

  Abban wasted no time arguing, skimming his lens to the south, finding what he sought at last. There, coming in fast from their hidden cove, his small fleet was nearly invisible on the dark water, unnoticed by the enemy.

  The lead vessel was Everam’s Spear, commanded by Drillmaster Qeran and crewed entirely by men from Abban’s Hundred, a sleek galley with twenty oars to a side and square sails that could catch most any wind. But the black sails were furled, the galley shooting like an arrow for the enemy fleet under oar power alone. The fore and aft castles had no slingers, only specially designed scorpions and many, many men.

  Two more galleys followed, and a score of smaller vessels—these carrying neither slinger nor scorpion, their holds packed with Sharum.

  Abban produced a second warded distance lens, a cheap copy of his own, but effective enough. He wanted his old teacher to see this.

  “You are right, dama, not to put faith in the dal’Sharum to stop the enemy. Watch now as my kha’Sharum do what they could not.”

  Khevat looked doubtful, but he raised the lens to where Abban pointed. “Our captured ships. What of it? A handful of ships cannot sink so many.”

  “Sink?” Abban tsked. “Where is the profit in that? If we are to win this war, Dama, the enemy fleet must become ours.”

  A moment later, Qeran’s ship was in range of a large Laktonian galley, an elegant vessel with great pointed sails and wide deck lined with armament on both sides.

  The Krasians fired great barbed stingers that stuck and held fast in the enemy ship’s hull. The trailing ropes were attached to heavy cranks, and muscular chin slaves bent their backs, drawing the ships in close.

  Before the Laktonians knew what was happening, agile kha’Sharum Watchers were already running up the taut ropes like nie’Sharum on the top of the Maze walls. They carried no shields, but all had half a dozen throwing spears on their backs, and by the time planks were dropped for the other warriors to follow, the biggest threats on deck were eliminated.

  In moments, Abban’s warriors swept the deck. He saw Qeran among them, the drillmaster easy to spot with his missing leg. He killed with an efficiency that would have frightened Abban, if not for the man’s aura. Abban could not read hearts like Ahmann or the Damajah, but the glory of victory was bright around him.

  You see, Drillmaster? Abban thought. I have given back all you have lost.

  When the deck was clear and the ship firmly in the hands of the Hundred, Mehnding were brought aboard, the teams running to man the chin armament. A skeleton crew was left in place, and Qeran leapt back to Everam’s Spear even as the lines were cut.

  All across the lake, Laktonian ships were being similarly boarded by teams of Sharum that had rowed silently into position. The greenlanders might have the advantage in ranged fire, but in close-quarters killing, there were none in all the world to match the Sharum of Krasia. Jayan had given Qeran men, and the drillmaster had run them mercilessly back and forth across tilting ship decks until they found their water legs.

  Q
eran himself had taken four ships, and the rest of his fleet another sixteen, before the cries of alarm reached the rest of the Laktonian fleet.

  Only then did the Mehnding on the decks open fire, aiming for the enemy ships that had pulled up to the docks and struck ground on the beach. As the Laktonian troops disembarked, the Mehnding rained the greenlanders’ own demonfire down on them. Chin warriors screamed and burned as Abban’s pirates turned their attention to the next ships in line to unload. Great chains were slung, tearing sails and splintering oars to leave the ships dead in the water.

  The Laktonian captains, still outnumbering the pirates, shifted fire to the new foe, but the Mehnding archers let fly flaming arrows, catching their sails and strafing their decks while the chin fire teams struggled to recalibrate.

  Sharum’s Lament appeared, the agile vessel tacking around the others to bring its armament to bear. The advantage of surprise was soon lost, and the numbers began to tell. But unlike the greenlanders, Sharum warriors were ready to die. When their ships were damaged, they were more than willing to ram the enemy and leap the gap, fighting in close.

  But still it seemed the battle on the water would be lost, and the Laktonians escape back to their stronghold. There was one last trick Qeran could try, but the drillmaster had argued long and hard against it, and even Abban agreed it was a desperate move that might do more harm than good.

  Jayan lowered his veil. “I am Jayan asu Ahmann am’Jardir am’Kaji, firstborn son of Shar’Dama Ka and Damajah, Sharum Ka of all Krasia.” He gave a slight nod from his saddle. “May I see your face and have your name, chin, before I send you to Everam to be judged?”

  “Don’t …” Sament began, but Thamos ignored him, sticking his spear in the ground within easy reach, unfastening his helm.

  As he lifted it away, Jayan’s eyes widened. “You. The princeling who came with the Par’chin to …”

  Thamos nodded. “I am Prince Thamos, fourth son of Duke Rhinebeck the Second, Lord Commander of the Wooden Soldiers, third in line to the ivy throne and Count of Hollow County.”