The Court of Broken Knives

by Anna Smith Spark

  That wasn’t a battle, he kept telling Mish. That was … I don’t know what that was. But definitely not a battle. Not even berserk barbarians wacked on horse milk and dodgy mushrooms tend to fight quite like … whatever that was.

  Fun, something in him kept saying. It was fun.

  Then he’d go away and almost puke with shame at himself.

  ‘My loyal soldiers,’ Illyn began. Poor bastard, thought Tobias. Knows he’s beaten. You don’t start a speech to your troops like that unless you already know you’re totally screwed. ‘King Marith’, the whisper had gone around the men that morning in eager voices. A tone in the voices that made the skin crawl even as it made the heart beat.

  ‘My loyal soldiers. What has happened here on this field cannot be allowed to stand unavenged. The dead demand it of us. Honour demands it of us. And so I say to you now: this is war. We will crush this place and all within it. The pretender and all those who support him will die. The dead demand it. Our honour demands it. In Amrath’s name, I swear this will be so.’

  Coughing. Shifting of men’s bodies. Muttering in the ranks. Then one of the big nobs raised his sword and shouted ‘King Illyn!’ in a weak voice. The men around him stamped and cheered half-heartedly. After a moment Tobias joined in. Mostly out of pity for the poor bloke. The trumpet blew the call to form battle lines. Slightly more rousing than the lame-duck stutter that had just passed for a speech.

  And that’s it then. Meat slurry time again.

  The king stomped off into his command tent. Big fancy silk thing, dark red with gold trim in case someone, somewhere forgot for one moment who the Altrersyr were descended from. Like everything around the battlefield, it was covered in bloody seagull shit. Didn’t show quite so badly on the red, at least. You stupid fool, Tobias thought, watching him go. He was your son. He had so much in him. Even I can see that. Now he’s … whatever it is he is. Your murderer, for one. A whole lot of us did things that led up to this, and you did more than most. Couldn’t you just have told him you were sorry? Had a pint and a man-to-man chat and made up?

  The soldiers formed up in columns. Tobias was somehow humorously close to the front. A group of particularly hard-core guys shuffled forwards with a battering ram. The trumpets sounded. The war drums began to beat.

  Oh fucking fucking fuck, thought Tobias. What am I doing here? Why did this seem a good idea? Why didn’t I just leave everything well alone?

  King Marith. I want to kill him. I have to kill him. He needs killing. He can’t be allowed to live. That’s why I’m here.

  Yeah?

  King Marith … The skin crawled but the heart beat.

  The trumpets sounded. The trebuchets heaved into action. A crash, a scream and a spout of fire as the first round hit Malth Salene’s walls. The battering ram began to hammer against the gates. The trebuchets loosed again and the ground shook. A section of wall dissolved in green liquid fire. Molten fire. Molten stonework. Molten men.

  A voice screamed, ‘Take the fortress! Destroy the traitors! Surrender or die in the name of the king!’

  The soldiers of King Illyn pressed forwards. A burst of mage fire caught the gatehouse. White flames, as well as the green.

  See it through. See it through. Kill the boy.

  King Marith. Ah, gods …

  The trebuchets loosed again. Shattering the walls. Running, running with fire. Eating away the gilded stone.

  The gates of Malth Elelane burst open. A troop of horsemen burst out. At their head a silver figure. Shining. Blazing. His sword flashed rainbows. His cloak was red. Shadows circled over him.

  King Marith.

  The most beautiful thing in the world.

  Tobias’s mouth fell open. The men at the battering ram went down beneath the charge. A spurt of blood. King Marith’s sword flashed like lightning. Rainbows. Stars. Pure perfect silver light. The attack stopped in mid-sword stroke. A last trebuchet missile shattering on the keep walls. Then a long pause and silence. The army of King Illyn staring. The beautiful figure. King Marith! Amrath! Amrath come again!

  Marith’s horse reared. He cut the men around him down. They did nothing. Stared at him.

  Amrath! Amrath! Amrath returned!

  There were a couple of villages in Chathe whose inhabitants believed the world was one vast rotting corpse, people the maggots crawling in its flesh. You could kind of see that, looking at Marith. Suddenly really made sense.

  The men stood and let him kill them. Smiled at him as they died. So godsdamned beautiful. Radiant. The most perfect perfect thing in the world. The thing that had entered them all and never quite left them, worn its traces like scabs. A little bit of him in all of us, Tobias thought. Like a man who’s drunk tainted water and got the fluke.

  He hurled himself on the man next to him.

  The man next to him hurled himself back.

  And we’re all fighting and fighting and fighting together, he thought. Fighting and fighting and fighting till the world ends.

  What men are made for. Killing. Dying. Being killed.

  A song came into his head suddenly. Old, old song. Knows the words right as breathing. Better than he knows himself. His own name.

  Shouts it out, stabbing at the bloke next to him. Bloke next to him dies shouting it back. They all take it up, dead men and dying. And we’re all dying, aren’t we? he thinks. Just some quick, some slow. What we’re born for. Killing. Dying. Shouts it loud and clear, while he’s killing. Kill and kill and kill! Keep killing until we’re all dead.

  Why we march and why we die,

  And what life means … it’s all a lie.

  Death! Death! Death!

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  A rock slams over the walls and smashes into the courtyard. A shower of dust and shattered stone. Green liquid fire drips off it, liquid and burning, a cry from the courtyard where it strikes. Men fall with fire coursing up their bodies. Like insects swarming over them, climbing legs and arms, making for the face. Where it meets skin it hisses and steams, eating away flesh and bone, melting leather and metal, worming its way into the bloodstream and making the blood boil. White fat runs in streams across liquefying flagstones, bubbling and smoking as it runs. The towers of Malth Salene shake and tremble. The towers are burning and falling. The walls break apart. Destroyed.

  I could live here with him, I thought.

  Deneth Relast is putting on his armour. Jora Relast sings with pleasure as she straps it on. Savane blows kisses at the soldiers arming. Landra stands in the doorway and weeps.

  ‘Here we are then.’ Marith looks around at me. ‘It’s done.’

  He takes my hand. Kisses me, gently and softly, a kind protective kiss.

  ‘Ride out of the back gate by the middens. Take the lich road onto the moors. Wait there until it is done. You will be safe. No one will come near you. No one will be there. I swear it.’ He smiles. ‘My Queen.’

  I kiss him back.

  I see the thought in his eyes: She loves me! She loves me!

  I don’t know. I think perhaps I do.

  Shame in my heart like the light on the water.

  But he’s so beautiful, I think.

  The towers rock and tremble. Mage fire and banefire eating at the walls. Another missile strikes the courtyard. Men standing rapt with worship as they burn.

  ‘King Marith! King Marith!’ Their voices are prayers. Like the Great Hymn to the rising sun.

  A burst of mage fire shoots over the walls into the courtyard. Catches Landra. Catches Savane. Savane’s dress shimmers silver. Her skin sparkles. She burns. Jora their mother shrieks with horror. Deneth her father shouts ‘Kill them!’, pulls his helmet onto his head, grips his sword.

  I think of what Landra Relast did to me, dragging me here, wanting to kill me, wanting to kill him.

  His father wanted to kill him. Was glad to say he was dead. Deneth Relast and his son and daughter tried to destroy him.

  Landra survives.

  Savane is dead.

&nbs
p; A wave of banefire crashes across the courtyard. Drowning men even as they burn. A voice is screaming somewhere ‘Destroy it! Destroy it!’. From inside the walls or outside, I don’t know. Destroy it, I think. Yes. Jora Relast turns towards the fire. Holds out her arms. The fire embraces her. Surges over her body. Runs like insects over towards her husband. I do not want to watch them die.

  Landra screams something. Runs towards her mother. Her hair is burned off. Her skin is burned off. Soldiers turn towards her. They are turning on each other. Beginning again to kill each other. Deneth Relast stares at his wife and his daughters. His home burning. He does not seem to understand what to do.

  ‘Destroy it!’ the voice shouts. Marith’s voice. ‘Destroy it! Kill them all!’

  Landra’s eyes meet Marith’s for a moment and they are worse than his own. She screams a curse at him. Then she is gone inside the burning building, and a handful of soldiers are chasing after her, and the rest are killing each other at Marith’s feet.

  ‘Ride out of the back gate!’ he shouts at me. ‘Wait on the lich road! You will be safe! I swear it!’

  The walls explode in white and silver. Marith forms up a group of horsemen behind him. ‘Destroy it!’ he shouts again. ‘Kill them!’ Then he shouts, ‘Open the gates!’

  The fire is burning in him. In his eyes. His face. His cloak is still stained with the blood of his last battle. Blood runs off it as he goes.

  He is death. He is ruin. He is Amrath.

  But he is so beautiful.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The gates opened. He rode out through them, killing men as he went. The fire burned in his head so bright it sang. He could see everything. Hear everything. Feel it all as it moved around him. Every life. Every death. The men surged after him, shouting his name. ‘Ansikanderakesis! Ansikanderakesis Amrakane! King Marith! King Marith!’ Beauty and joy to break the heart.

  His father’s soldiers stood and died for him. Worshipped him as they died. Loved him. He cut them down. Rode through them to the ranks of men gathered around the siege engines. Waiting for him. All of it waiting for him.

  He pointed at the walls of Malth Salene behind him. ‘Destroy it! Kill them! Kill them all!’

  The trebuchets loosed. Banefire flying. Men turning to fight each other. Overwhelming themselves. The earth trembled. His sword danced in his hand.

  Fire and stone and blood and bone as the gatehouse gave way, shattering like the glass had shattered in Sorlost, fragments shining glowing falling through the air like jewels. Like eyes. Falling through the air like coloured stars. Look! There’s the Worm, and the Maiden, and the Crown of Laughing, and that big green one is the Tear.

  ‘Death!’ he screamed to them. ‘Death! Death!’

  He crashed through the ruins of his father’s army, standing staring at each other, staring in adoration at him, turning in confusion to fight the men following him and each other and themselves and everything. Had to find his brother. His father. Decide how best to kill them.

  Ti was probably on his way back to Malth Elelane, he thought then. Weak and hiding. Resentful and scared. But his father was here somewhere.

  A burst of white light smashed into the ground near him. Mage fire. And so his father was with the mage. Marith spurred his horse in the direction the mage fire had come from, charging against the tide of the men. One of them went down under his horse’s hooves. Should have got out of the way then, you fool, he thought.

  Another burst of mage fire. Aimed at him this time. Marith pulled the horse up short. It let out a scream as the ground around it exploded. He shouted angrily, spurred the horse on hard over the burnt earth. Flickers of white flame darted around its legs.

  A man came rushing towards him, howling something, armed with sword and knife. One of the few who still tried to fight him, hadn’t yet seen him, seen what he was. He warded off a blow from the man’s sword. The knife came up too, trying to stab at his leg or at the horse’s flank. He felt a sudden shriek of pain rip up his side. Another man, behind him, smashing at him through his armour, a hard vicious blow to his hip and another to the small of his back. The horse screamed. Reared up so that he almost lost control of it. Thrashing about maddened with pain, one leg limp.

  He forced it to run on, brought it round in a circle. They couldn’t kill him. Nothing could kill him. It wasn’t fair that they’d hurt him. Another burst of green fire shot up over his head and despite everything he stopped a moment to watch it land. The wall of the keep swayed, its stones hissing, sweating flame.

  ‘Destroy it!’ he screamed.

  He struck one of his assailants hard on the side of the head, hitting down to the bone. The blade stuck: he had to kick the man and the body fell back off the sword with its head all in pieces like it was a dead pig being made into brawn. The horse was still screaming, its leg flopping about. It shouldn’t be up any more. Should be collapsed in a heap with him cutting its throat. He pulled it round again, slashing at the first man, aiming again at the head. An explosion of white light, everything so bright he could see through it. The horse shrieked and tried to twist away.

  Rethnen Jurgis. The man who’d run at him jerked back with his helm knocked askew and his skin burning, and Marith saw Rethnen Jurgis’s face staring, all angry and weeping and fervent. He’d killed Kam. Cut his face to pieces and ridden his horse over him. So now he’d kill Rethnen, Kam’s father, too. Rethnen howled as he swung at Marith. Marith cut back at him, catching his blade on Rethnen’s armour, the metal screeching and Rethnen flinched. Hacked down again, harder and angrier. The horse shrieked, its leg going, bleeding now where one of their blades had caught its flank. Weak. Weak thing. Stupid thing of flesh and bone. Thalia had been frightened of horses. Too big, she’d whispered. Her lips close to his face. Too big. How do you control it? Know it won’t run? Another explosion of mage fire, dancing over Marith, filling his vision, beautiful as stars. Rethnen was burning, lit up and filled with light. Closed his eyes and he could still see, liquid silver and the man’s figure black against it, see Rethnen’s heart red and beating, failing, breaking in the heat of the fire. Opened his eyes and the world was shadows, pale and jagged and raw. He got Rethnen again in the shoulder, smashing with the flat of the blade, watching the man stumble back a pace. Spurred the horse and Rethnen stumbled and the horse crashed into him and he went spinning and falling backwards dropping his sword, blood welling at the shoulder joint, back and down, stupid weak thing like the horse.

  No point staying to see if he died. Marith kicked the wounded horse on and galloped looking for his father, thinking how to kill him.

  Found him by one of the trebuchets, guarded by a troop of soldiers and the mage. They’d killed several men who’d tried to take them. Good. His father was for him and him alone.

  Illyn’s guards drew up around him. And the mage. The horse paced and snorted. Just like Sorlost, the king cowering behind some stupid magician, thinking that might keep him alive. He cut down the soldiers. So small and helpless they seemed. Their swords nothing. They came at him together in a rush, striking at him. You shouldn’t be fighting me, he thought. You’re fools. He got one in the chest, through the armour, seeing the look of shock on the man’s face that the bronze didn’t protect him. Another in the head, a good sound it made as his sword smashed into the skull, cracked it open and crushed it. His blade like hands tearing things apart. Breaking them. Rending them down.

  White fire crashed over him as he fought, great white waves of it like breakers. Swimming in light. The horse was bleeding in a thousand places, leaching blood, hacked open and black as cinders, its heart beating slow, its head flopping and moving like a toy horse. Not real. Not real any more. Nothing’s real, apart from death. He turned on the mage who was screaming and howling at him. A glorious thing, magic. A wonder. A marvel. But it can’t stop a man dying in pain. He struck home and the mage was bleeding. Hacking and slashing in wild strokes. White fire blazing on everything, lit up so bright he can’t see. Swimming in l
ight. Shattered glass and stars and snow. Everything dying. Everything burning. Nothing but death in all the world. In his mind. He hits and cuts and stabs and the horse is screaming and the mage is screaming and he laughs and shouts and hits out again, everything’s white, so brilliant it’s like his heart’s singing, he can see everything even with his eyes closed and he kills and kills. His skin is hurting from the light, it feels like salt water on a wound, I will not burn he thinks, the mage is burning with fire hissing out of him, his skin is hurting now from the light, I will not burn and he strikes harder, and the light is so bright, the world’s fading, he’s almost frightened for a moment, his sword hurts in his hand, I will not burn, I will not burn, striking harder and harder even as he’s tired, just killing, just kill them, and then onwards and onwards and everything will die and he’ll be king. Killing and killing and killing. Death and death and death. He’s blind and the light’s too bright and he’s tired and everything’s bleeding and everything’s burning and his heart is so full of joy.

  The scent of wild thyme and wild garlic in the hedgerows. The song of a blackbird in the west gardens where the may tree grows. Eating apples straight from the tree in the orchard, the juice running down his chin, then washing his hands in the little stream that flows there, thick with yellow irises and bulrushes that leave their down on his clothes. Hoarfrost crunching beneath his feet on the uplands, the sky white with coming snow. Riding through a meadow when the hay is being cut. Riding through green summer trees. Reading a book by the fireside. Swimming in the sea.

  I know what I am, he thought. And I know what I’ve given up. Sometimes I even wonder why.

  And he stops, and the soldiers are dead, and the mage is dead, and his father is dead, face down in the dust and broken apart.

  Death! Death! Death!