by Col Buchanan
The sun had long ago risen into the sky, yet the enemy attacks against the dugout had lessened over time. No longer did they try to toss grenades inside or rush them with sheer numbers. The enemy seemed content enough to take the odd rifle shot from afar, though even those were waning, so that now the silence in Nico’s ears had been ringing for long moments uninterrupted.
‘They’ve stopped firing,’ someone remarked.
‘Maybe they’re getting ready to storm us again,’ sighed Shandras, and she struggled to her feet with a bloody shortsword in her hand.
In a corner, Bull snapped awake where he sat slumped against the wall. His surviving Contrarè companion, Sky In His Eyes, stood watch near to Nico at the doorway with an arrow nocked in his bow, eyes squinting towards the nearest tents.
‘No,’ said the Contrarè. ‘I think not. I don’t see anyone out there.’ Neither could Nico, for that matter. It certainly was quiet outside. So quiet that he took a step around the doorway of sandbags to take a peek for himself.
Around the dugout lay a score of dead enemy soldiers, sprawled in all contortions where they had fallen during their assaults. From the doorway he could see down into the imperial encampment spread along both sides of the river, all the way to the small hill that was Beacon Heights and the watchtower standing at its peak.
To the right, on the eastern side of the river, figures were moving about in the brightening morning light, a bustling camp awakened to a new day. Yet the riflemen along the bank had stopped firing now, and simply lay there watching them across the span of shallow water. While here on the western side, with the imperial flags snapping in the wind, the camp looked entirely deserted.
There wasn’t a soul in sight
‘You know, I think they’re actually gone.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t ask me how, but I think half the camp down there is empty.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the Contrarè man by his side. ‘I thought I was going crazy.’
‘You are,’ snapped Cole, stepping over to join them even as the women were struggling to their feet for a look.
But Cole stared in surprise down at the tents below them.
‘Must be a trap,’ grumbled his father. ‘Some game they’re playing with us.’
‘We’re hardly so important they’d clear out half the camp for us.’
Suddenly they heard a din in the distance, over the murmur of the river.
‘You hear that?’ his father asked.
Nico had pricked his ear to the air, his mouth hanging open to better hear.
He frowned in surprise.
‘Sounds like battle.’
‘Must be the action at the walls,’ said Shandras.
‘No. Listen. It’s getting closer.’
The others strained to hear too. The sounds were unmistakable now – gunfire and the thunder of pounding boots, thousands of boots upon the plain, coming closer towards them in a rising tide of screams and panicked shouts.
‘It’s the Bar-Khosians,’ Shandras gasped. ‘They must be attacking the camp!’
Her words were enough to spur Nico to action. He drew his sword then stepped out through the doorway, feeling the heat of the sun against his head even as a lean wind scoured his skin.
‘Nico!’
Still there was no sign of anyone. Bang went a gun from the other bank and Nico ducked low, hopping over bodies towards the cover of the nearest tents. When he swept aside a door-flap he saw that the tent was empty inside, and when he turned about his father was following after him, firing a shot across the river while Bull and the rest of the group shambled from the dugout.
Smoke was rising now above the tents to the west, from fires raging through the encampment. Khosian skyships drifted over the haze, firing down upon the enemy. The sounds of battle were definitely coming closer.
‘Maybe they’ve all gone to the fighting,’ panted a woman crouching down for a breath.
But Cole shook his head. ‘No. It still wouldn’t be this empty. There isn’t even a camp dog in sight. And those troops across the river haven’t made a move against us.’
‘Whatever’s going on,’ gasped Bull, ‘our best bet for getting into the city is linking up with that Khosian force over there.’
For a moment Nico was hardly listening. He could see Kes’s body still lying in the river.
He shook his head to clear it, then met his father’s steady gaze. Cole had been right. They had done all they could for these women. His mother was out there in this camp somewhere, having to bear who knew what at the hands of these people.
Now it was time to find her while the camp was in disarray.
‘What are you doing, man?’ asked Bull.
He watched his father dragging a dead enemy soldier into cover. Cole said nothing as he pulled off the man’s cloak, then tossed a helm into Nico’s hands.
‘We’re going after my mother,’ Nico told them all, trying on the enemy helm for size.
‘Bull’s going to see you safe, all of you,’ Cole told them. ‘Isn’t that so, big man?’
Bull straightened in his skins and glanced to his Contrarè companion, who shrugged minutely.
‘Please,’ said Chira. ‘I want to live. I want this child to live.’
The man exhaled long and hard, snorting steam like the animal he most resembled. Unexpectedly he held out a hand to Cole and his father took his grasp, wrist to wrist in the old soldier’s clench.
‘Good fortune,’ Bull told him.
‘Yes,’ added one of the women. ‘I hope you find that wife of yours, wherever she is.’
His father nodded, surveying them all, swallowing down some sudden emotion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Halahan
The Lord Protector was showing them bloody mayhem all right, Colonel Halahan of the Greyjackets could see from the high parapet of the wall.
Tents were burning throughout the southern outskirts of the enemy encampment, where Creed had led his fast-moving force on their surprise raid, flanked by a trio of skyships spitting down covering fire.
Yet still the imperial assault upon the wall continued unabated. Thousands of fighters rushed at the defences in rolling waves that one by one crashed against them in riotous havoc. It was almost as though the Mannian commanders barely cared for Creed’s latest counter-attack.
Halahan carried an uneasy feeling in his guts. A sense that something wasn’t quite right here.
He was almost expecting it when he heard the shouts of alarm rising from behind. The Nathalese man plucked the pipe from his mouth as he turned around to peer back into the city.
Strange, he thought, gazing along Renunciation Street to the wagon and zel-team thundering towards the wall as though out of control, soldiers and civilians leaping out of the way.
The driver looks like he’s whipping them on.
Halahan grunted, swinging his longrifle from the crenellation to peer through its scope along the city thoroughfare.
The wagon driver was indeed spurring on the team of zels to run faster – a fellow clad in a Red Guard cloak with the hood swept back from his head, one hand clutching at the reins and the other lashing the lathered zels with a whip.
‘That’s Tensin, isn’t it?’ remarked a voice by his side. One of his men, one of his Greyjacket snipers, checking out the sight through his own rifle scope. ‘Officer of the Tower Watch?’
‘Aye, but what the devil’s he playing at?’
Colonel Halahan lowered his rifle and stepped over to the edge of the parapet, right above the north-eastern postern gate.
Guards were stepping out onto the cobbles now, raising their hands for the approaching wagon to stop. But it charged onwards without slowing, and a sudden dread flooded Halahan’s stomach as he looked on, seeing the heavy load of powder kegs sitting in the back of the cart.
‘Jet,’ he said to the Greyjacket still aiming his longrifle, his voice less steady than he’d heard it in years. ‘Take out the driver. But be caref
ul with those bloody powder kegs in the back.’
The rifle jumped with a crack and the driver cast up his arms, tumbling from the wagon in his red cloak and armour.
Yet still the wagon came thundering onwards, the blindfolded zels charging in panic for the gates.
If a bullet breached one of those kegs of powder the whole lot would go up in the middle of the street. Yet if they didn’t take down those zels . . .
‘Open fire!’ Halahan yelled at anyone within earshot as he lifted his own rifle and shot at one of the lead zels, though the creature only staggered in its harness and kept running. Other shots rang out.
Too late, he spotted a second figure crouched out of sight in the back of the wagon, squeezed between the stacks of powder kegs. Jet saw him too and fired off another round, but by then Halahan was screaming for everyone to get clear of the gates. He shoved Jet through the doorway of the gate tower, still yelling at everyone to get clear, and pushed him through the busy space to the doorway on the other side, roaring at everyone’s startled expressions.
‘Get out! Get out!’
Halahan was still shouting as the wagon exploded behind them, beneath them – a sudden eruption of noise and heat that lifted the whole gatehouse into scattering blocks of debris, sending Halahan flying through the air with his arms and legs flailing.
The old Nathalese veteran crashed against stone and felt the impact of broken bones inside of him. He blacked out for a moment, and then he came to with a dizzying sense of vertigo, a coalition of pains competing for his attention.
It was no time to be lying around in a daze. Halahan cried out as he rolled onto his back. Grit rained down upon him. Dense black smoke robbed him of air.
All at once, awful screams were breaking through the ringing in his ears. He saw Jet staggering about covered in blood. Other figures moved about in the bank of smoke pouring over them.
He coughed up blood, nearly passing out from the pain that shot through his ribs.
I’m dying, Halahan thought without panic, knowing what it meant to be coughing up his own blood. After all these years, the bastards finally finished what they started.
He could be honest with himself now, he supposed. Lying there in the timeless dimension of the moment, Halahan knew that he’d only been half alive since fleeing his homeland of Nathal all those years ago; since fleeing the ashes of all that he had known. Only half alive for all that time, and most of that had been occupied by the infinite grinding patience of his vengeance, which would never be stopped so long as he breathed – his need to draw blood from these Mannians who had conquered and enslaved his people.
Yet he didn’t regret it, his years of grim and single-minded determination to get his revenge – this man who had once so long ago been a preacher of peace. Only half alive was still a lot better than what many of his people had suffered, and were still suffering.
Halahan could hear the roar of the enemy on the other side of the wall as though they were getting closer. Volleys of gunfire were ringing out. Officers bawling orders along the wall as though they were suddenly under attack.
He found he could still move if he gritted his teeth and focused on his hatred for the enemy. He groped towards a rifle lying there amongst the debris and clutched it tightly. Gasping, shaking his eyes clear of sweat, he clawed his way through the rubble to where the tower and parapet had been blown away in a great bite, dragging the rifle as he went, coughing a trail of blood. Wounded men moaned and cried out.
Below him the explosion had replaced the postern gate with a smoking crater in the ground. The wind was howling through the gaping chasm in the wall, and with it came enemy figures leaping and hacking at any defenders still on their feet.
Sweet Mercy, he thought. They’ve breached the wall!
The enemy seemed uncommonly silent in their assault, until he glimpsed their white robes and masks and knew that they were Acolytes, the fanatical warrior priests of the Mannian order. With a grunt of effort he propped the rifle before him, wiping clear his eyes before taking a glimpse through its cracked scope. He fired off a shot, a loose one, feeling lucky, and dropped a masked Acolyte on the run.
Halahan cracked open the rifle and replaced the spent shell, his head clearing as he inhaled the familiar, bracing whiff of gunsmoke. He nestled down into the stock and fired again, another loose one, another fallen enemy figure.
‘Good shot!’
It was Nilsetti, the crazy ex-teacher from Serat, one of his oldest and toughest Greyjackets, crouched down and taking a shot with his own gun. Beyond the man, the parapet was alive with action as far as Halahan could see. Enemy forces were throwing themselves over the crenellations like never before.
Another explosion sounded out from further along the wall. Black smoke rose from a fiery core.
Another bomb.
‘That’s the main northern gates down too,’ Nilsetti shouted. The Seratian squeezed off another shot then looked down at Halahan, who was struggling now to slot in another shell, fumbling at an action he had performed a thousand times and more. ‘They’ve taken us, man!’ Nilsetti was yelling at him. ‘We’ve been betrayed by our bloody own!’
A wave of noise was rolling towards them over the dying echoes of the second explosion: more of the enemy charging for the fallen gates. The Imperials were flooding through the gateway below now, though defenders were forming across the road to block their way, staff-sergeants in red cloaks bawling them into position, Red Guards locking shields and drawing swords, even as Acolytes sped in with their own blades flashing to crash against them.
Other figures darted in from the side streets too – wild-haired men and women in skins and furs. Some whirled blades on the end of tethers as they charged straight into the enemy attackers. Redeemers, Halahan saw, placing themselves at the very fulcrum of the action, laying down their lives to stem the flood.
He was too stunned to take it all in. He could barely believe it was happening. All these years defending Bar-Khos, and now the enemy forces were flowing through the breached gates into the city.
At last his shaking fingers slid home the shell. Colonel Halahan cocked the rifle and took aim. It was impossible to miss now, like shooting into a stream choked with fish. Halahan took a man in the back then reloaded once more, wheezing for air, wondering how many breaths he had left in him, how many shots, how much fight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nico
‘The slave pits,’ Cole whispered into the soldier’s ear, and relaxed his grip just for a moment, just enough for the red-faced man to take a gasp of precious air. ‘The slave pits for the new arrivals, the pleasure slaves. Where are they?’
‘North of here,’ rasped the imperial soldier. ‘Near the river. Just . . . follow the stench.’
Nico hissed at what he heard. ‘We must have floated right past them on the way down the river.’
But his father was too busy strangling the man to comment, the soldier floundering and growing limp in his arms. He held him like that for a long time, dripping with sweat, then dropped him like a sack of spuds.
‘You didn’t have to kill him,’ said Nico, staring down at the young man’s features.
‘You think I enjoy this or something? You rather he woke up and told the whole camp where we’re going?’
Behind his father, through the tent wall, figures were hurrying back and forth along a busy thoroughfare, jostling and noisy. Nico adjusted the imperial helm on his head and glanced out of the flapping doorway.
‘This is all starting to feel heavy, don’t you think?’
‘That wasn’t heavy enough, what we’ve just been through on the river?’
‘Yeah, but then we got this far, maybe close enough to rescue my mother. And now my guts are in a stew.’
His father’s smile was a grim one. It was getting to him as well, the tension.
‘Come on, you fool. Let’s go and see if she’s there.’
*
Dressed in the cloaks and helms of impe
rial soldiers, Nico and his father had crossed the river using one of the many swaying rope bridges strung across it, leaving behind the seemingly deserted camp and the nearing sounds of battle. On the opposite bank they found that the encampment was thronged to bursting, its tents and thoroughfares alive with activity.
It was as though much of the population of the western side of the camp was now here instead, temporarily anyway, crammed into whatever shelter they could find.
Even now scores of soldiers were staggering back across the nearest bridge with officers yelling at them to hurry, while others kicked stragglers into positions along the embankment. Over on the opposite side, smoke was streaming from the many tents on fire, creating a haze that was carrying towards them on the wind. The clashes of fighting were close now. Through breaks in the smoke he thought he glimpsed Khosian standards flying tall and proud.
‘They’re routing,’ Nico whispered to his father as they hurried along.
‘No, it’s too orderly for that. They’re pulling back for some reason.’
His father didn’t like it, whatever was going on. Cole bunched his jaws and kept his head hunched low in his imperial helm, leading Nico northwards.
Zels whinnied from their pens or from the harnesses of wagons they dragged through the mud. Men held on to caps and leaned against the gusts with their cloaks sweeping around them. Under thrashing awnings, cooks stared from their cauldrons at soldiers waiting cold and miserable for their breakfasts. Cole and Nico hopped between hot sparks flying from the strikes of a blacksmith, under lines of washing flip-flapping about their heads. They hurried past the tired stares of men lying in their bedrolls in their small tents, smoking roll-ups and pipes, and the even wearier faces of men waiting to use the latrines along the river bank, backs turned to the gusts.
Clearing a busy road, his father suddenly stopped in his tracks. ‘This is it,’ came his raw voice in the wind.
They were facing an open patch of ground, covered in mounds of earth and square tarpaulins lying stretched out here and there. Flanking the open space were pens of cattle, except where the river glittered in the morning sun, and off to the right where large tents stood with a few figures moving amongst them.
