by Anthony Ryan
A multitude of voices babbled in the shadows and more prisoners came into the light. Many were bowing in servile obeisance whilst others glared in suspicion. Whatever their willingness, the ragged and emaciated state of most caused Vaelin to wonder what use they might be as soldiers. He did spy some sturdy specimens amongst them, but most of these stood behind the lean man who remained as impassive as before.
“Shut it, you fawning shits!” he barked out, instantly silencing the other prisoners. “I’ve heard of Pao Len,” he said to Chien. “Heard he died on the Merchant King’s order.”
“He did,” Chien said. “And the Merchant King himself told me how impressed he was that my father never gave up a name in the long hours he suffered before the headsman ended him, even those he had called enemies all his days. Know this and know that his blood runs in me. The word of the Crimson Band is never broken.”
The smuggler turned to the cluster of sturdy men at his back, voice lowered in swift discussion. “If we fight we get paid,” he said, turning back to address Vaelin this time. “The same as any other soldier. And”—a smile played over his lips—“I get to be captain.”
“Yes to the pay,” Vaelin said. “No to the captaincy. You can be a corporal.” He held the young man’s gaze, looking for a sign of challenge. If it came to it he would have to be beaten down, most likely killed to ensure the others fell into line. As Sho Tsai had noted, Vaelin had done this before.
“Corporal then,” the young man said, proving at least that his defiance didn’t extend to stupidity.
“You have a name?” Vaelin enquired.
“Cho-ka.”
Dagger or thin-bladed knife, Vaelin translated, doubting it was the name this man had been born with, not that it mattered. “Corporal Cho-ka,” he said. “Get these men into some semblance of order and march them from this place. You will follow me to the canal. I feel a bath is sorely needed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Form a circle!”
Boots stamped and armour clinked as the company attempted to perform the manoeuvre they had been taught over the course of three torturous days. Vaelin saw several collide with their comrades, dropping their spears in the process. The contrast to the other regiments drilling in the central square was stark. Even the relatively raw militia troops were given to laughing openly at the outlaws’ clumsy attempts at soldiering. The overall sense of disorder was not helped by the decidedly non-uniform appearance of his troops. With much of the garrison’s armoury already denuded of kit, Vaelin’s command had been obliged to make do with the leftovers. Consequently, the men marched in armour of varying hues wearing helms that ranged from plain to extravagantly ornate. The only real uniformity was in their weapons, a six-foot-long curve-bladed spear and short sword for each man. Vaelin had hoped to find some archers amongst them but the armoury had been stripped of its crossbows.
“I’d say it was like herding cats,” Corporal Wei told Vaelin with a sour grimace, “if I didn’t think cats would make better soldiers.”
It took a full two minutes before the company had managed to form a semblance of a circle and another two before it conformed to something that might actually withstand a cavalry charge.
Vaelin swallowed a sigh, taking in the sight of sweaty faces beneath the mismatched helms. For all their amateurish ineptitude, most at least were making an effort. As he had seen before, desperate souls facing certain execution often responded with gratitude and loyalty when offered deliverance and a chance at redemption, not to mention regular meals and a bed to sleep in. They could be good soldiers one day, he knew. Had we the time. But time was against them, and these men would not be saved by a soft-hearted commander.
“Too slow,” he told Wei. “Twice round the square at the run. A beating for any man who falls out.”
He stayed for another hour, drilling and punishing them until they began to sag with exhaustion. “One hour for rest and food,” he told Wei. “Then take them beyond the walls and march them south along the canal for ten miles. Any who don’t make it back by nightfall will sleep in the open.”
“You sure, my lord?” Wei asked. “Plenty of likely deserters amongst this lot.”
“Make sure they know the Stahlhast’s scouts will make great sport with any runners,” Vaelin replied. “Besides, any who do take to their heels will be doing us a service. If they run now, there’s little chance they’ll stand later.”
He found Ahm Lin receiving a lesson in the spear from Alum. The mason had always been a sturdy figure, and the muscles on his forearms bulged impressively as he thrust the spear into a grain sack. But, strong as he was, he was no longer young and had never been a warrior. His first thrusts were swift and well placed, but grew notably slower and less accurate after only a few minutes’ effort.
“You don’t really have to do this,” Vaelin told him. “Alum and Sehmon will guard you close when the time comes.” In truth he had wanted to keep Ahm Lin as far from the fighting as possible, but the potential advantage offered by his song was too great. Also, the mason showed a marked aversion to avoiding what he saw as his due share of the danger.
“A man should always be open to new skills,” Ahm Lin said, smiling and panting as he hefted his spear for another try.
“Killing isn’t in his soul,” Alum advised Vaelin in Alpiran. “He tries hard but he’s no fighter.”
“He also speaks your language fluently,” Vaelin said, seeing Ahm Lin wince. He put a hand to his shoulder as Alum coughed in embarrassment. “Any change?” he asked the mason, who shook his head.
“A tune that tells of approaching trouble only. But you don’t need my song to know that, I’m sure.”
Vaelin nodded and moved away. “Find me when it changes.”
Ellese and Nortah were on the north-facing battlement of the city’s outer wall. An ample supply of arrows surrounded them as they drew and loosed at a target some two hundred paces out on the scrub plain that surrounded the city.
“Missed again, my lord,” Ellese told Nortah with a brief grin before forming her features into a frown of mock concern. “Perhaps your eyes are failing. A common trait amongst the elderly, I’m told.”
“I’ve caned students older than you for insolence,” Nortah replied, though his tone remained mild. He nocked and loosed again, his whole body moving with the effortless combination of strength and precision of a lifelong archer. Vaelin followed the arc of the shaft as it sank into the centre of the bristling target.
“Good,” he told them. “Now move it another fifty yards out.”
“We can’t be sure of a kill at such a range,” Nortah pointed out. “Not to mention the difficulty of finding a particular target in the confusion of battle.”
“You’ll have Juhkar to guide your aim,” Vaelin said. “As for being sure of a kill, I have a notion about that.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
At Sho Tsai’s urging, Sherin had established a makeshift healing house in the largest of the city’s temples, joined by an assemblage of the local healers. Most of these were monks and nuns from various Heavenly orders, one of whom proved to be a familiar face.
“Wait a moment,” Vaelin told Chien, who shrugged and found a shadowed corner as he went to greet the handsome woman bearing a basket of laundry.
“Mother Wehn,” he said, bowing. “You are far from the High Temple.”
The smile she gave him was faint, her handsome features tense with suppressed grief. “My order spent many hours in contemplation after your visit,” she said. “We decided it was unseemly to continue to sit idle in her home when we could journey north in the faint hope of providing her some measure of assistance.” She lowered her face. “We waited too long.”
“It’s my belief the Jade Princess set her own course many years ago,” Vaelin told her.
“But it was all for nothing. She failed to halt the Stahlh
ast, failed to heal the heart of their false god.” Mother Wehn’s tone was one he had heard before, the voice of a soul nearing the limit of their faith.
“Their false god is beyond any healing,” he said. “I think she knew that. She didn’t come to stop him, but to show others that they needed to.”
Mother Wehn smiled at this, but it was a tremulous thing, gone quickly as she briskly gathered laundry into a basket and went about her chores.
He found Sherin at a table in the temple’s scriptorium, cutting strips from a plain cotton sheet to increase the stock of bandages. “I don’t craft poison,” she told him with a hard glare, her knife making another precise lateral cut through the fabric. “War is your province, not mine.”
Her response didn’t surprise him, but the anger it provoked in him did. “Do you want this place to fall?” he asked, voice growing heated. “See every soul within this temple slaughtered for failing to bow down to the Darkblade? And what do you imagine Sho Tsai’s fate will be should the Stahlhast take this place?”
Her knife came down hard, the blade sinking deep into the surface of the table. Her fist lingered on the handle for a time, knuckles white before she snatched it away. It occurred to him that she had spent relatively little time in the general’s company since arriving in the city, and he knew she would have had hard words for him regarding his orders when he sent Commander Deshai to Keshin-Ghol.
Taking a calming breath, she said, “That was unfair.”
“War is never fair,” he returned. “You’ve seen enough of it to know that. You heal so that others may live. I fight to do the same. It’s what we’ve always done. Will you help me or not?”
She lowered her gaze, a small, bitter laugh escaping her lips. “Were we like this before?” she asked, voice soft with reflection. “Have I misremembered all these years? I cast you in the role of betrayer for so long perhaps it obscured how you really were, how I really was. Sometimes I think we were mere children playing at love.”
His anger faded with as much swiftness as it had arrived, leaving a small but painful ball of regret in his gut. “I wasn’t playing,” he said, turning away and gesturing for Chien to come forward. “I have asked Mistress Pao to see to your safety. She will be at your side for the duration of the siege.”
Sherin glanced at Chien, who replied with a cautious nod. “No disrespect to you,” Sherin said, “but I don’t require a bodyguard.”
“Yes,” Vaelin insisted, “you do. You are Gifted now, which makes you a target.”
Sherin sighed and forced a smile at Chien. “Do you have any healing skill?”
“I can sew a cut,” Chien said. “If it’s not too deep. Also, I know how to mix poppy essence so it will banish pain without killing.”
“Very well. You can stay. As to your mission, my lord . . .” she added, turning to Vaelin.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll find an apothecary somewhere in this city . . .”
“Come back tomorrow,” she cut in, grunting as she worked the knife loose from the table. “Around noon. It’ll be ready then.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Commander Deshai returned two days later. Watching the cavalry approach the western gate, Vaelin reckoned its strength was perhaps one-third what it had been when it set out. They moved in a ragged formation, two wings flanking a central column of people towing carts or labouring under the weight of heavy bundles. As they filed through the gate, he saw the faces of both people and soldiers were blackened by smoke and sagging in exhaustion.
“We’d barely made it halfway through the province when the Tuhla came,” Deshai reported to Sho Tsai. He had dismounted in the courtyard to offer the general a smart salute, but stood at attention on unsteady legs and voice dripping with fatigue. “Just a few hundred at first, we drove them off in short order, but they brought a swarm of their brethren back a day later. We burned all the crops we could, dumped animal carcasses in the wells. I doubt the enemy will glean much in the way of supplies from Keshin-Ghol. But it cost us, General.” He turned his weary gaze on his men, many of whom were sinking to their knees the moment they slid from the saddle. “As you can see.”
“I couldn’t ask for more, Commander,” Sho Tsai told him. His gaze tracked to the bedraggled farmers setting their burdens down. Perhaps half were men in their twenties or thirties, the rest a mix of younger women and a few children. “This is all?” he asked Deshai.
“The old folk either chose to stay or fell away on the trail,” the commander replied. “Most of the people fled directly south, ignoring our offers of protection. I don’t think much for their chances in open country. The Tuhla were in no mood to spare anyone. We even found children . . .” Deshai choked, face twitching before he mastered himself and coughed. “Your pardon, General.”
“See to your men,” Sho Tsai told him. “Then get some rest.”
The commander gave another smart salute and marched unsteadily away, rousing his men with orders to stable their horses and clean their kit.
“So,” Vaelin observed to the general, nodding at the beggared farmers. “No more supplies.”
“And more mouths to feed into the bargain.” Vaelin saw a decision flicker in Sho Tsai’s gaze. “It’s my intention to make this city the grave of the Stahlhast,” he said. “To do that it must become a trap, a battlefield unencumbered by useless mouths and those who cannot fight.”
A seed of worry crept into Vaelin’s heart as he took in the stern resolve on Sho Tsai’s face. “What do you intend?” he asked.
Some measure of his concern must have coloured his voice because the general replied with a short, caustic laugh. “Why, kill all the civilians in Keshin-Kho, of course. Is that what you expect me to say?” He shook his head. “The Barbarous East must truly be a terrible place. No, my lord, I have another plan in mind.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“I have to say, I think I’d much rather walk.”
Erlin’s brows bunched in dubious appraisal as he looked over the barge. Vaelin had to admit it seemed incredible that the barges could remain afloat, so crammed with people were they. Most were women, mothers with children and as yet unwed daughters. The men were all old and few in number. The Great Northern Canal met its terminus in the lowest tier of Keshin-Kho, opening out into a circular harbour equal in size to anything Vaelin had seen in a mid-sized port in the Realm.
The useless mouths of the city clustered in a weeping but otherwise quiescent multitude on the quay, many saying hurried tear-soaked farewells to their husbands and sons before walking the ramps to the barges. Once a barge had sunk low enough that the water obscured the white line painted onto its hull, ropes would be cast and sails raised as it began its southward voyage.
“You wouldn’t get more than a few miles before their scouts picked you up,” Vaelin told Erlin. “And I’m keen for our enemy not to read this.” He handed over the sealed scroll-tube along with the letter of free passage signed by Sho Tsai. “You have the gold secreted, I assume?”
“In my boot-heels and the lining of my jacket,” Erlin assured him. “If a bandit should find one, hopefully they’ll miss the other. Besides, I think any passing outlaws will find easier pickings elsewhere,” he added, gesturing to the fleet of heavily laden barges.
Thanks to a low-key but constant exodus of civilians in recent months, the city was only two-thirds as populous as it had been before the crisis. Consequently, there was sufficient space aboard the long, deep-hulled barges to accommodate every soul in need of escape. Some had been given a choice, mainly men considered too old for military service but not so infirm that they had no use. Most of these elected to stay, Sho Tsai forming them into companies of porters who would distribute supplies and ferry wounded from the walls once the fighting started. But for most their departure had been decreed by the order of the Merchant King’s General, and none ha
d been left in any doubt regarding the consequences of refusal. Even so, Vaelin found their obedience strange. Had he ever attempted such a thing in North Tower, or any town in the Unified Realm, this would certainly have been a scene of chaos and angry remonstration, if not riot. But here the people made their farewells, heart-rending though they were, and meekly trooped onto the barges to be carried away south.
“Were I a braver man I’d be begging to stay,” Erlin said, meeting Vaelin’s gaze with a grimace of self-reproach.
“And were you a wiser man you’d already have left,” Vaelin pointed out.
“An interval of self-delusion, I’m afraid. I had visions of joining the fight, repelling the savage horde, as much as my old bones would allow me, until I met my valiant end. It would have been a fine epitaph, don’t you think?”
“You are commanded by the Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches, as a loyal servant of the Realm, to undertake a mission of vital importance and no small amount of peril. In truth, I feel shamed in not sending anyone with you.”
“Your niece refused to leave, I take it?”
“Sehmon, too.”
“I walked these realms alone for many a year, in times of war and in times of peace. Have no worries on my account, I will reach a port and find a ship.”
Erlin hefted his staff and started towards the plank linking the barge to the dock. Before stepping aboard, he paused, voice faint with reflection as he said, “The Princess said I would be the last of us, you know. The old ones. I knew there had to be others somewhere in the world, but she was the only one I met. She told me of our fellow ancients, how, one by one, they had all come to seek her out, journeying from the far recesses of the world entire to hear her song. I was the only one who came back, because she and I were the only ones left now. She told me something once. I’m not sure if it matters amidst our current trials, but something tells me it does. She told me that whatever kept death from our door was not born of the black stone, for she was old before the first stone was ever dug from the earth.”
