Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

  Fane knew men. He knew what hatred did to them, and how shedding blood and seeing your friends die magnified it into something uncontrollable. That was why he’d wanted to be first to get to Lord Fetherhill and his family. Now it was urgent.

  He attacked without reservation. The first man facing him died with a blade through his throat and surprise on his face. Fane smashed another aside with his shield, knocking him ten feet across the room, and then went after the others. The third man staggered away bleeding heavily from his neck and the others backed off. One of them was cut down from behind and Fane took his chance. He ran. A sword slashed at him as he passed, but he took it on the shield and was through. He took the stairs three at a time. There were two bodies on the stairs. One was an archer and the other killed by an arrow.

  He emerged at the top in what were obviously the private apartments of the Fetherhill Lords. He saw furs, rugs, tapestries, paintings, gilded furniture. He saw blood. There were perhaps a dozen of Wenban’s men here, though thankfully Wenban himself was elsewhere.

  They had Fetherhill himself pinned to the wall, a blade at his throat, but most of their attention seemed to be directed at two teenage girls – Fetherhill’s daughters. One of them was being held and the other forced face down by a man with a firm grip on her hair. He was a holding a knife in his other hand.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Fane asked. He made his voice flat and emotionless. This was going to be a lesson.

  “You can’t stop us,” the man with the knife said. “We have a right. My cousin’s son…”

  “You have no rights,” Fane said. “You have orders not to harm these people. You swore an oath.”

  The man shook his head violently. “No. That ends here. This is what we came for.”

  “So it does,” Fane said, and killed him. He did it quickly, casually. The man fell on top of the girl, who screamed. Fane took another step forward, the tip of his reddened blade at throat height. “Does anyone else wish to repudiate their oath?” he asked.

  They stared at him, not quite believing, perhaps, that he had just killed one of their own.

  “These people deserve to die,” one of them said.

  “I don’t care,” Fane said. “I don’t care if these girls personally murdered every member of your family with a blunt stick. You will put your blades up and leave. Now.”

  They looked at him. Disbelief again. He was defending Lord Fetherhill and they didn’t understand why. They would, in time, but for now it was only important that they rendered unquestioning obedience. The man holding Fetherhill himself had a thoughtful look. Perhaps he was thinking that he could kill the man and get away with it. Fane stared at him.

  “You cannot imagine what I will do to you if you kill him,” he said. His voice was still flat, still lacking any emotional content. His blade was steady as a rock and pointed at the soldier’s face. The man looked away and took the knife from Fetherhill’s neck.

  “We just thought…”

  “Don’t,” Fane said. “Don’t think. Obey first, think later if you must, but a man who disobeys an order is a traitor to our cause.”

  It was over. The tension drained from the room like wine from a punctured skin. They left, one after the other they put their blades up and walked from the room, heads bowed so as not to meet his eyes. They were afraid of him now, and that was good, but not perfect. He needed that fear to be tempered with respect, even love. They needed to know that he was their monster.

  Lord Fetherhill slid down the wall and sat, rubbing his neck. He scratched at his short, grey hair.

  “I thank you, sir, whoever you are. You have saved all our lives this night.”

  “I’m no friend of yours, Lord Fetherhill,” Fane said. “The gods alone know who commands what’s left of your regiment, but they’ve taken the Queen hostage. This is our response.”

  “I would never have issued such an order,” Fetherhill said.

  “Which is why you’re still alive.” Fane hooked a chair out with his foot and sat on it, facing the family. One girl was helping the other to her feet. They still looked afraid. “Those men who wanted to kill you, they’re Fetherhill men, your subjects, and they have good cause. You’ve bled them dry. The whole of the south is ready to rise, and after this I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Your soldiers are away. You can’t stop them.”

  “A rabble,” Fetherhill said. He was beginning to puff himself up again.

  “Now, perhaps, but they’ll be an army soon enough.”

  “What regiment are you? You wear no colours.”

  Fane smiled a cold smile. “I am General Jerac Fane of the peoples’ army of Avilian, Lord Fetherhill. I have yet to name my regiments.”

  Fetherhill pulled a face. “Peoples’ army?”

  “An army without a lord to serve,” Fane said. “A wildfire in a dry land.”

  Fetherhill finally understood. He saw the man blanch, his eyes widen a little in fear as he took the meaning of Fane’s words. An army that served only the people meant the end of lordship as it had always been. It might mean an end to lords.

  “I will set reliable men to guard you,” he said. “You need not fear for your lives. Not yet, anyway. Not as long as the queen lives.”

  He left the family chambers and went back down the stairs. Wenban would understand the necessity of war. Prisoners must be treated well enough, but it was important that word of this reached Fetherhill’s men to the east. He would send riders and then he would wait. He did not doubt that in the meantime his army would grow. As word of what had happened here spread the people of South Avilian would flock to his banner. He didn’t know how many, but they would come, and eventually Alwain would hear of it. That was the plan, anyway.

  It was four days before the first volunteers arrived.

  48 Cain’s Pendulum

  It took six men to lift the thing. Cain watched them struggle to raise it onto the top of the wall. He’d wanted it made of iron, solid iron, but there wasn’t enough iron in Bas Erinor to make enough of the things without stripping every soldier of his weapons, and that would never do.

  It was a ball, essentially, and about four feet across. Instead of solid iron it consisted of a shell of woven iron slats, a lattice of sorts, encasing rocks. There was always enough stone. At the top there was a ring as thick as a man’s wrist.

  Finally, the thing rested on the top of the wall. This was not the city wall. He wasn’t going to show his hand so plainly before Alwain attacked. This was a wall within Bas Erinor Castle. He watched as they threaded a heavy rope through the eye and tied it firmly in place.

  “You’re sure you have the length right?” he asked.

  “We can’t be certain until it’s tested, My Lord,” the blacksmith standing at his side said. “But we’ve allowed for the height on the ball, the length of the rope needed to tie off at the top and the stretch of the rope – as the ropemaker said it would. Now we just have to see.”

  Cain nodded and watched as they carried the other end of the rope along the wall and wrapped it three times around one of the crenels.

  “That masonry’s good enough, I hope,” he said.

  “Doesn’t look rotten,” the smith said.

  This was a test, and as part of the test they had set up ladders between the iron ball and the other end of the rope. Each of the ladders had been weighed down with bags of stones to represent men at various heights. The ladders were firmly set on flat ground and weighted at the bottom.

  One of the men on the wall waved an arm.

  “They’re ready, My Lord,” the smith said. Cain was enjoying this. It reminded him a great deal of his time with The Seventh Friend at Fal Verdan when they’d improvised so many things to keep the Seth Yarra army at bay.

  “Let’s see it then,” he said.

  The smith raised his arm and the men by the weight levered it over the edge. It fell straight for a moment, a brief unfettered plunge before the rope grew taut. Cain waited for the rope to break.
He almost expected it. The steel and rock weight was so massive, but the line held and the steel began to swing. The weighted ladders were in its path, but presented no obstacle. The massive ball swept them aside and there was a sound of splintering wood.

  It swung past the bottom of its arc, chipping stone from the castle wall, then settled back.

  So far so good.

  “Now haul it up again!” Cain called.

  The men on the wall clustered above the hanging ball and tried to free the loops from the crenel, but after two minutes it became apparent that they could not without dropping the weight to the ground. The rope was too heavily wrapped and weighed down.

  “We need a second rope,” Cain said.

  “Or perhaps a different way to hold the high end,” the smith said.

  “Maybe, but the idea is sound.” He walked forwards to inspect the ladders. As his ears had told him, some of them were shattered and others had cracked. Only a few were intact. This was more than he had hoped for. A simple sweep would have satisfied him, but to demolish what the enemy needed to assail the walls was a bonus.

  He walked over to the massive weight which hung a couple of feet above the ground. He had moved heavy things before. He’d watched the carpenter Alos Stebbar, Deadbox, they called him, move massive barrels up from his cellar in The Seventh Friend with a pulley system, and he’d used something similar to hoist the heavy wooden bar-top into place.

  An iron wheel. That was what he needed. The image came into his head as clear as day – a wide rimmed iron wheel with a rim more than a foot wide. The axle would brace on crenels either side and the wheel would lock with an iron bar through the spokes, also braced against the crenels. But then there would be the problem of pulling the weight up onto the wall – but why not into the gap between the crenels, and then the wheel and rope could be moved back along the wall while the weight rested and all could be prepared for the next drop in the opposite direction.

  Yes, it might work. He would have to make sketches and they would try again, soon. He was aware of the days passing. It would not be long before Alwain tried his arm again.

  As if in echo of his thought he heard the sound of running feet and turned to see one of the Wolfen Pledge, sprinting towards him across the castle courtyard. The man slowed and stopped.

  “My Lord, a message from the Captain. He believes that Alwain means to try the main gate.”

  Up here in the castle he was the best part of a straight mile from the gate, and his path to the gate twisted about the city. He had thought them safe for the day. Noon had passed. Perhaps Alwain had counted on that.

  Cain ran to his horse. He trusted the Captain of the Wolfen Pledge, trusted his judgement and his ability to fight his regiment, but Dantillia had set traps by the gate and Cain wanted to see if they worked. He rode hastily through the castle, ducking under arches that had never been designed for horse and rider, and a gallop through the gate took him to the top of the Divine Stair.

  From here he let his horse set its own pace – little more than a walk. The stair sloped and curved with a drop to the outer edge and he had no desire to fly.

  At the bottom he spurred her on again. It was a straight line from here down the city’s widest street and he made the best speed possible. Already he could see a thickening of the men on the walls around the gate. There was no fighting as yet, but they were getting ready.

  He reined in his horse twenty paces from the gate and ran for the stairs that led up onto the wall. Captain Dantillia was waiting for him.

  “I knew you would come, My Lord,” he said, grinning. “Look.”

  Cain looked. In the distance there were a great number of men gathered around something that looked like a long tent.

  “A ram?”

  “I think so. He means to bring it up the road and batter at the gate.”

  “You have your targets well marked?”

  “We do, My Lord.”

  Then we wait, Cain thought. He watched with interest as Alwain’s men formed up, raised their massive ram and began their progress towards the main gates of Bas Erinor. It was worth trying. The gates had no portcullis and so could be broken, and once broken the lower city would fall. But that would not happen today.

  The ram came closer. It was a good-sized tree, limbed and sharpened at the heavy end. They had suspended it from a frame and fitted wagon wheels, ten of them, to the frame. On top of the frame was a roof – the sort of thing that would protect men from arrows.

  “The great bow?” Cain asked.

  Dantillia signalled to the men on the massive bows and they loaded, tilted the weapons and lined them up. It would not be a difficult shot at such a huge target.

  “Shoot,” Dantillia said and the two bows leaped. The great arrows tore holes in that thin roof and men screamed, fell aside, but the ram kept coming.

  “Now they have hope,” Cain said. “They think it is possible.” It was, of course, if Alwain was willing to spend the men. There were only a few of the Wolfen’s deadly flasks buried along the road and once they were gone it would be difficult to replace them. Dantillia spoke to his archers, the men with ordinary bows, and they drew their arrows back.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  A flock of lesser arrows flew, but not at the ram and its punctured roof. Instead they clustered at the side of the road until one of them found the flask hidden there. The road erupted. Stones and dirt slammed into the men beneath the rear of the ram and it faltered. Two wheels were broken on the right side and the thing was twisted in the road. Even so, after a pause, it began to limp forwards again.

  “Let them come closer,” Cain said. “Use oil.” He saw Dantillia frown, but the captain nodded. There was a danger in using oil with a wooden gate, but Cain wanted the road blocked. If he burned the ram fifteen feet from the gate they would have to come and remove it before they tried again. That would be costly.

  Jars arced out, smashing against the roof, the oil soaking, running and dripping all over the structure. There were cries of alarm from the men beneath. They tried to move faster, to get close enough to the gate so that the defenders would not dare fire the oil, but they were too slow. Fire arrows descended like a hot rain and the roof of the ram blossomed into flame.

  It staggered a few more paces, but already it was shedding men like an autumn tree shedding leaves in a gale. They were dying, too, burning or being sought out by the Wolfen’s arrows, or both. Within minutes the road was shrouded in smoke, the men who had carried the ram were scattered in a bloody, blackened trail back to Alwain’s lines and the attack was over. The ram itself blazed on the road, blocking two thirds of it. Another such attack would be impossible.

  Cain walked to the other side of the tower and looked at Bas Erinor, its quiet streets, the rise of the mount on which the Divine City sat. He took no delight in the carnage on the road, but this, this was worth preserving. It did not do for a general to have doubts, but Cain felt them. He was killing Avilian soldiers to defend Avilian, and that was a difficult thing to live with. A hundred years ago just such men would have stood with him at Fal Verdan and been proud and now they were burned and shot with arrows on the road to their own city.

  Cain had thought long and hard about this when he’d been given the dukedom. He had decided that this time he was not fighting for Avilian, but for the sort of kingdom Avilian would be. That now seemed a particularly thin reason. Kings and dukes came and went. The fortunes of kingdoms rose and fell with them. Perhaps Pascha had been right all along – the best thing to do would be to wait. Civil war was an especially nasty species. It left scars. Maybe a corrupt peace would have been the lesser evil.

  But none of that mattered now. He could not roll back time. He could not surrender. This bitter war must be fought to a conclusion.

  “My Lord?”

  Dantillia was standing just behind him. He turned.

  “Alwain’s men have retired to their camp. It seems the attack is over.”

  “Did we lose
any men?”

  “No, My Lord. Not one man was injured.”

  That was one good thing, Cain supposed, though Alwain had lost less than a hundred men in the attempt. It was hardly a great victory and Alwain was proving himself a surprisingly patient opponent.

  “It’s not over, Captain,” he said. “It has barely begun.”

  49 Gayne

  Francis Gayne woke to a hammering on his door. He rubbed his face and opened his eyes to daylight.

  “What?”

  “You asked me to wake you.” It was Keron on the other side of the door. Francis remembered asking the big man to wake him, but that had seemed ten minutes ago and a lifetime away.

  “Fine,” he shouted back. “I’m awake.”

  There was a pause outside the door and then heavy footsteps retreating down the corridor. Gayne lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. His head ached and his eyes felt gritty. He’d drunk too much the previous night, but it was not the drink that kept him still in bed. It was his dreams. They had been dreams of dying and the memory of his own demise was still vivid in his head. It faded though, the light of day withering the memory of fear and pain as he lay, but it would not all go. There remained a bad feeling, like an ache, somewhere deep in his gut.

  It was not entirely surprising that he had dreamed of death. He had so nearly died the day before.

  Yesterday had started well enough. He had at last found the lieutenant who had been in charge of the gate where they had tried to kill him. The man was posted to one of the city gates and Gayne had seen him before he was himself seen, and so had the advantage. He called his thief-gift and waited. He waited for hours, tucked into a shady corner in a run-down tavern across the street from the gate. He watched the man for half a day, saw him speak to people, give orders, receive messages and send replies. Gayne wondered how many of those messages were from the men who had ordered Gayne’s death. It did not matter. He would have his answers soon enough.