A Shout for the Dead

by James Barclay

  'You cannot give in to your nightmares. The sun shines upon us. The Omniscient will bless us this day. The Lords of Sky and Stars look down upon you. Today the world will be placed back in balance. The dead will lie beneath the ground and only the living will walk the surface. You will play your part, all of you.

  'For Atreska, for Neratharn, for Estorea and for me!'

  Davarov held his sword high, the heavy long blade catching the sun. How odd it felt in his hand. How ungainly. But he had practised enough. The sarissa bladesmen too, the axe-wielders and the hammer infantry. So little time in reality to prepare for a war unlike any they had fought before.

  'Reap this crop for me,' he said quietly as the roars of his legionaries flowed across him. 'Slash and burn.'

  'A fine speech,' said Roberto.

  Davarov smiled. 'Well, I listened to you enough times, something was bound to rub off.' 'Brevity at least.'

  'You're going to stand with me?' Davarov's smile faded, seeing the haunted look in Roberto's eyes. 'You don't think you should be across the other side?'

  Roberto shook his head. 'I cannot go there. I cannot watch them. Jhered will see it through, him and your field commanders. Dammit, Davarov, you know part of me almost wants them to fail. To be swept away and killed, leaving the victory for the legions as it should be. A world without the blight of this magic'

  'But it's what we have,' said Davarov. 'And without them, there will be no victory, you know that.'

  'I'm not so sure.'

  'Yes you are, Roberto.'

  'They aren't here on these walls, are they? And do you think the dead will make a breach?' Davarov scoffed. 'Hardly.' 'Well, then.'

  'But there is no wall behind us besides the one they build with their Works. You have to want them to succeed.'

  'I want the Conquord to succeed. Not quite the same thing.'

  Davarov shrugged. 'Have it your own way, Roberto.'

  The sky above was a peerless blue. But over the Gaws and the foothills above Lake lyre, clouds were building. Black and ominous, tall and churning. The wind picked up pace, swirling around them. Quiet fell across the barrier and all that could be heard above the beginning of the Ascendant Work was the crying, wailing and shouting of tens of thousands of displaced citizens, trapped by the dead and by their own fear.

  'Well,' said Davarov. 'Here we go.'

  Mirron could see them through the trails in the air, through the ground and in the starkness against the living landscape. The dead were like holes in the elements. A shifting greyness that fed through the ground, turning the slow energy of earth and the quick shapes of animal and vegetation to nothing.

  They were coming on two different fronts. Gorian must have known the Ascendants were going to attack the open side and his forces moved several miles apart. Jhered, on Arducius's advice, moved the artillery to cover one force, leaving the Ascendants to contain and destroy the other. Both enemy forces if they could.

  'You'd better be right about this,' said Jhered. 'Big open spaces behind us if you get it wrong.'

  'We won't,' said Mirron.

  Jhered chuckled. 'I bet you won't at that.'

  Arducius was already deep into the first section of the Work. He was building deep, tall thunderheads above Lake Iyre and the Gaws, drawing on the geographical features to boost their density and size. A barrel of water had been brought to stand beside him and he used it in conjunction with the lively genastro growth energies to catalyse his efforts.

  'Mirron, I need you,' he said, voice distant and showing strain. 'What do you need?'

  'Strengthen the energy lines to the cloud bases. I think ...' he trailed away for a moment. 'Ossie, he's found the construct. Keep him back.'

  Mirron blew hard as she joined Arducius in his Work, lending him her strength and the well of her ability. She channelled quickly, drawing in water from the barrel, feeling it flow over her body, projecting out the fast blue lines into Arducius's thick trunk construct, flowing north and south.

  She could feel Gorian there. He was attacking the periphery of the trunks. Spears of cold rushed under the earth, frost burst through the topsoil. Mirron shivered as the freezing energy flowed over her. The water surrounding her crackled.

  'Ossie,' snapped Ardu. 'Quick.'

  'I'm here,' said Ossacer.

  Mirron felt his warmth as though he had thrown a blanket around her shoulders. The water and the earth warmed. Mirron could see Ossacer's effect. A sheath of health covering the trunks, keeping back the cold. Mirron opened an eye. Ossacer was shaking, his hands buried deep in the ground. Breath clouded in the air around him. Moisture condensed from the air, gathering in a mist about his body.

  'Ossie,' she said. 'Don't use yourself.'

  'Only way,' whispered Ossie. 'Can't draw on your sources and the ground around us is dying.'

  He was right. Gorian's riposte was taking the life from the earth. Deep below and rising, snuffing out root and insect, beginning to claw at the shallow-rooted plants.

  'Push back,' said Arducius. 'Hold him away.'

  Mirron could feel the pressure Gorian was exerting. How he was doing it escaped her. Thousands of dead were marching on them and even with the Gor-Karkulas and her son as amplifiers, he surely couldn't keep this up for long. Too much drawing on his mind.

  She could feel the thrumming of feet as the army of the dead approached, dragging their artillery with them. They were closing at a double march, Gorian hoping to be upon them before Arducius was ready. She could see them as an amorphous grey mass against the sky and the trees that filled in behind them. The sickness they wore like armour was a thick mat in the air, shrouding the useful energies, dampening them, denying them to the Ascendants.

  'Quickly, Ardu,' said Ossacer.

  Mirron refocused on the trunks of Ardu's Work. They were humming with barely suppressed energy, dragging in more and more of her and him, exhausting the water in the barrel. But the circuit was complete. The clouds, a mass of spitting yellow and red energy more like fire than anything else, were billowing across the sky, bringing a premature dimness to the day. Inside them, thunder growled and lightning sheared. They spiralled thousands of feet up, spreading faster almost than the eye could see.

  'Nearly there, Ossie. Hold on.'

  Mirron hoped he could. Gorian's attack on her brother was fierce and relentless. Like he knew it was Ossacer holding him at bay. The cold was deep and abiding, like the harshest dusas on the highest Karku peak. Ossacer was fighting it with everything he had. He poured health and healing energies into a shield about him. Gorian's construct had changed. Where there had been spears of cold, now it was a solid cloak, pounding at Ossacer, driving the strength from him.

  'Ardu,' he gasped and Mirron saw the blue on his lips.

  Somewhere in the distance could be heard the thud of catapults. Arducius had to hurry. The dead were on them and the living trapped in the camps behind them were beginning to scream.

  'Release!'

  Davarov chopped his hand down and his flag and hornsmen relayed the command. Along the line of the walls and from the space behind, a hundred catapults sang. Onagers, ballistae and scorpions. Arms slinging forwards, thudding into stays. Great bows projecting thick bolts or fist-sized stones.

  From the onagers, stones smeared in pitch flamed away into the air, trailing smoke and ash. Davarov followed their trajectory out over the plain, crashing down three hundred yards into Atreska and on to the mass of the enemy. It was all he could do not to turn away. Ballistae rounds punched holes in walking dead, picking them up and casting them back into the midst of the march. Onager stones plunged down, battering great rents in the lines, rolling on through body after body, scattering pitch in their wake. The earth was churned to mud as other stones ploughed in short or sailed long, sending up huge divots and spatters, muddying the sky.

  The march did not stutter. Flaming corpses lay on the ground. Men with arms and legs torn from their bodies tried to claw and haul themselves on, driven on by the shou
t in their heads that would not let them rest. The sounds of windlasses cranking filled the air.

  Davarov could see a wagon drawn up well out of range. It was surrounded by dead and sat about a hundred yards in front of the Tsardon forces who showed no signs of attacking. Their few pieces of artillery were moving forwards. But while they were not attacking the Conquord yet, they were not attacking the dead either.

  'Chancers,' muttered Davarov. ‘I knew we couldn't trust you.'

  Onagers were primed. Powder flask and stone nets were loaded into ten of them. The ballistae and scorpions sang again. Dead were skewered but rose and came on. Gesternan and Atreskan legionaries with rotting faces, torn clothing, rusting armour and massive wounds pulled themselves to their feet and moved on. Davarov shuddered.

  Even at this distance, holes the size of his head could be seen in men's chests and stomachs. Entrails were dragged behind stumbling, sliding bodies.

  The powder catapults fired.

  Every eye followed the trajectory. Every other action ceased. Davarov held his breath. The dead came on. Three hundred yards and closing. The first of the nets came down towards the rear of the lines. The dead dropped like corn under a mighty scythe. Fragments of stone scattered from the impact zone. Bodies were shredded, torn to pieces, utterly destroyed. Fifty, a hundred, more. It was impossible to tell. A heartbeat later the sound of the detonation. Davarov ducked reflexively. Stone chips rattled on the Jewelled Barrier.

  Net after net fell. Only one missed its target. The remaining eight struck home. The battlefield was covered in smoke, ash, flame and dust. Blood smeared the ground. The dead, dismembered, lay scattered. Debris was everywhere over an area of four hundred yards. None walked there bar the odd staggering corpse, injured beyond recognition as a man. One moved though the whole side of his body had been torn away from shoulder to hip.

  In the centre of the devastation and spreading out, a keening, haunting wail filled the air. Screams of men aflame. Dead men, knowing their fate at the end. Bodies thrashed on the earth. Parts of men, rendered flesh, had scattered hundreds of yards in every direction.

  And yet, to the south towards the Gaws and to the north away towards the lake, still they came. Without fear and without pause. Davarov cursed.

  'You cannot break their will,' said Roberto. 'You can only destroy them one by bloody one.' Davarov nodded.

  'Turn the catapults! Track the incoming. Fire at will.'

  Dead were walking with bow, ladder and spear in hand. Soon, the former would be within range of the walls. And that could not be allowed to happen.

  Kessian sat in the sunshine in a quiet part of the glade. He could feel all of those men under his command. His soldiers. His father's people, that his father had entrusted to him. And he would not let Gorian down, not like he almost had the time before. Then he had panicked, he knew that now. And the things he had wanted his men to do, they hadn't. Many had fallen and some artillery too. Father had been very angry and taken command. He had won that fight.

  It was so easy when he had his toys. They always did what he said. Father said it was the same and so this time he was going to make them do just what he wanted and nothing else. Inside his mind, the Work was a bright, beautiful ball of light. It fizzed and jumped and was warm. Thousands of lines trailed away from it, went through the ground and then up into the body of each man. Four thousand, his father had said. Or thereabouts.

  'March,' he said.

  And they did. It made it easier if he tapped out the time with his hands. They put their feet down to his rhythm. He looked through the eyes of them all. It gave him such a view. Lines and lines of enemy soldiers. Standing and waiting with their shields ahead of them. Their onagers and their ballistae. More toys to knock down.

  Kessian would send his men in amongst them. Bring them to his father. Make them see what everyone should see. He smiled. His mother would be so proud of him when she knew.

  Kessian's soldiers marched with purpose. His artillery was moving into range. Above, the sky was getting very dark and he could hear the wind building up too. He was close to the enemy now. The Dead Lord in the middle of his men was keeping them in close order but it was Kessian who made them fight. His father said they could do it without the Dead Lords but that they made it easier. Kessian thought they weren't worthy. They should become Gorian's people too.

  Ahead, he heard sounds and saw movement. The arms of the artillery rose up. Black marks studded the sky. Others were like balls of fire. They came closer and closer.

  'Don't be scared,' he said. 'You'll be all right.'

  Stones thundered into the front of his people. Red smeared his vision. Nearby, he thought he could hear his father shouting angrily. But next, all he could feel was pain. Pain through the energy lines. He cried out but there was no one near to help him.

  His men juddered where they were but he would not let them stop.

  'March on. Enemy ahead. Make the stones stop falling.'

  Jhered had wrapped his cloak around Ossacer but the Ascendant was failing quickly. His extremities were blue. He was shaking. There was frost in his hair and eyelashes. But still he clung on, doing whatever it was Arducius asked of him.

  For his part, Arducius was lost in a sheen of water. It sluiced around him and Mirron; swirling, jumping and thickening. Above them, the cloud was angry, a dark grey, almost black. Illuminated by the flickering of lightning. Deep within, the bass rumble of thunder was a portent of the violence contained in the Work.

  Jhered shuddered. The air felt heavy and still. The wind that had arisen had died away, focused up into the mass of the mighty thunderhead that stretched for miles and miles, reaching out to join with its brother, heading in from the Gaws. The power they were calling upon was something beyond his comprehension. What he did understand was that they had to use it soon. The dead were only a hundred yards away and the artillery had stopped within range.

  'Mirron, below the ground,' said Arducius.

  'What?'

  'Magnetic ores. Deep down, below the dead energies.' Mirron drew in breath. Jhered frowned. 'Yes,' she said. 'We can make a circuit.'

  'What?' asked Ossacer, his voice coming from a place deep within himself, dredging from his fading energies. 'Be quick, Ardu, please, he's going to break me.'

  'Just a moment,' said Mirron. She glanced up at Jhered, smiling her thanks at his attempts to help Ossacer. 'Magnetic storm.'

  'Ready,' said Arducius.

  'Ready,' said Mirron. 'We're aligned.'

  Arducius held out his arms and brought them together. The two thunderheads collided. Light flashed within. A massive crack ricocheted across the barrier, the camps and the open ground. A single spear of lightning rattled down from the cloud. It struck a spear tip. The dead carrying the spear was ripped apart, body shredding, spattering blood and filth.

  Jhered leapt back a pace. He stared at Arducius. The Ascendant's hands came together briefly.

  'Here we go,' he said. 'Brace yourselves.'

  Arducius separated his hands. The cloud tore asunder. Rain disgorged, ripping into the earth. And the lightning. Dear God-surround-him, the lightning struck. Like a thousand, ten thousand, spears thrown from the sky it came. Crossing the gap between sky and ground in a heartbeat. Dead were shorn in two. They were detonated, obliterated. Smoke and ash funnelled into the sky. A hissing of rain turned instantly to steam. A thumping sound as of a million feet running on dry ground.

  Jhered backed off. He couldn't help it. The violence was like nothing he had ever witnessed. The destruction, the noise. Bodies cast high, high in the sky. Flaming corpses sent skidding away in every direction. Body parts, innards, scorched to nothing in instants. Catapult frames exploded. Burning wood splinters sent high into the sky. And the lightning did not stop. Pounding down, ripping up the ground, driving holes deep into the earth. It sparked from armour, shivered swords and incinerated clothing and flesh.

  Away to the second front, the artillery had stopped firing. But it wasn't bec
ause they had stopped to stare. It was because there was nothing left to shoot at. Nothing at all.

  'It's over,' shouted Jhered. 'Ardu, it's over. Stop for God's sake. Stop!'

  Mirron had heard him and laid a hand on Arducius's shoulder. The brittle-boned Ascendant drew his hands back to himself and laid them on his chest. The lightning ceased and the clouds tattered, cleared and dissolved to nothing. The last of the rain fell. The water surrounding him and Mirron dropped to the ground to leak away into the earth.

  Jhered looked forwards. Smoke was a barrier across the battlefield. And when it cleared, Jhered swallowed and felt the chill of all he had just witnessed. Not a thing moved. Nothing. The dead had been destroyed. Conquord men and women reduced to ash or scorched beyond any recognition. Gone in heartbeats. All that was left was smoke clinging to the ground and flame where a scrap of clothing or plank of wood still burned.

  Ossacer slid to one side and lay on the ground, gasping and shivering, pulling Jhered's cloak to him. Arducius and Mirron were hugging each other. Mirron was crying and Arducius was trying to comfort her. But Jhered could see the shock on his face and the mark of regret in his eyes.

  'It had to be done,' he was saying. 'It had to be done.' And behind them in the refugee camp and away to the legions gathered as witnesses, the cheers of the saved began to swell.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  859th cycle of God, 12th day of Genasfall

  'Get these people away from the docks. Into the west quarter and beyond.'

  Tsardon sails crowded the horizon. In amongst them, Ocetanas triremes and Ocenii corsairs were causing mayhem. Fire and smoke billowed into the clear sky. Yet their best would not stop the enemy reaching Estorr's harbour. There were simply too many of them.