by David Hair
The final man was a bulky, puff-cheeked Rondian in Keshi garb. He had deep green eyes, a pale, curling beard halfway down his chest and a shaven, sunburned skull. ‘This is Magister Stivor Sindon, formerly of the Ordo Costruo,’ Gatoz told them. ‘He gave allegiance to Emir Rashid years ago, when Antonin Meiros broke faith and allowed the Crusade.’
Magister Sindon ran his eyes over Kazim. ‘You’re the Souldrinker,’ he stated, his expression deeply distrustful. ‘What are your affinities, boy?’
Kazim had not got far enough into his training before he’d rebelled and refused to learn any more from Sabele. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted sullenly.
Magister Sindon raised one eyebrow, as if his impressions of the training afforded Hadishah magi had been confirmed. ‘No doubt all will be revealed in time,’ he said coolly.
Kazim felt his instant dislike deepen. Just once I’d like to know more about what is going on than the people around me.
Molmar plucked at his sleeve. ‘Come, brother. Let’s prepare for the journey.’
*
The windskiff rose at Molmar’s gesture, topping the walls of the Dom-al’Ahm as Kazim stared about him, feeling that same rush of excitement he’d felt when he’d first flown. Whatever my ‘affinities’ are, flying must surely be involved, he thought.
His first flight might have been just a few months ago, but it felt like a lifetime. He’d been an occasionally devout Amteh worshipper who believed himself human, not magi, and all he’d cared about was to rescue Ramita Ankesharan and take her home. Now he had blood on his hands; he’d lost his love and gained monstrous powers instead. But as Molmar hauled on the sails and the skiff caught the winds with a thrum that shivered through his core, he felt his spirits rise.
Jamil and Haroun and two other Hadishah were aboard too. Below them rose a second skiff bearing Gatoz, Talid and Yadri and piloted by Sindon, who flew with casual effortlessness. The city of Galataz spread beneath them, barely visible through the smoky miasma that covered it. Many had fled, seeking safety from the oncoming Crusade, but as many more remained, apparently hoping not just to survive the advent of the Rondians, but to actually profit, Jamil had told him darkly.
The second skiff rose on a summoned wind and gracefully darted past them, Gatoz waving ironically. The gesture irked Kazim. He looked about him, opening himself up slightly to the new senses the gnosis brought. He had to fight the urge to be ill, but he did it nevertheless. There was a piece of wood at the base that ran the length of the hull; it thrummed with energy. Remembering Molmar’s past lessons, he retrieved the word ‘keel’. The single mast was fixed to it, and there was a spur of wood behind the mast, which Molmar held onto. Unfocusing his eyes and extending his senses, he could see a faint blue light that ran from Molmar’s palm into the spur and down into the keel. He reached out slowly and touched the spur himself, below Molmar’s hand. He could feel the tingling power of the pilot’s gnosis and he closed his eyes and tried to share in it – to add to it.
The windskiff shuddered and their lift wavered.
It came instinctively. His skin dimpled at the cool air rushing past and he breathed it in and tried to envisage himself as something that this energy would pass through. The keel shuddered again, but this time it did not falter but gained in strength. He felt them lift higher and grinned.
This was harder, for the wind was elusive and ever-changing, but Molmar clasped a hand over his and he felt the other man’s presence inside his head. In fright he tried to block him out, scared Molmar would see right into his black heart.
He flinched. Can I believe that? Though he felt a kinship with Molmar, he barely knew the man. All he had ever known of the gnosis had been evil, except this one thing: flight. But Molmar had been the only one of his new ‘friends’ who’d never lied to him, never tried to manipulate him – that he knew of.
Kazim met Molmar’s gaze and they shared a moment of understanding. Something he’d never got from his poor blind father shone in the other man’s face and he realised that Molmar, born in some secret Hadishah breeding-house, had no more connection to family than he did.
We are kin, he and I, he thought, and smiled.
Then Molmar pointed to the other skiff far ahead, silhouetted against the face of the moon. ‘Let’s catch them,’ he said gleefully.
Kazim remembered that mocking wave and his competitive streak rose. ‘Let’s do it,’ he cried, and the winds surged behind them, the skiff’s sail bulged and they soared faster and higher.
They didn’t quite catch Gatoz’s skiff that night, but it was fun trying, and when they landed just before dawn in a valley a few miles from the Krak di Condotiori, Kazim felt tired but more fully alive than in months.
He peered about him with interest as they were led below ground, into a series of caves, the size of which he couldn’t even begin to guess at. There were more than one hundred men within already, and rumour had it that the tunnels led all the way into the Krak itself. The network had apparently been formed in secret by magi loyal to Rashid; they had taken more than a decade to complete.
The following day, Jamil took him to a lookout point where they could gaze at the Krak, only a few miles away. Even at this distance, its walls looked massive, the great sandstone ramparts towering above the valley beneath. Two sharp-peaked, snow-capped mountains known as The Tusks rose on either side of the mouth that was the gorge that rose towards the keep. Kazim could see a man-made lake behind the walls, with canals and a white waterfall that disgorged a torrent into the valley below. There were no houses in the valley – building there had long been forbidden by the defenders – but it was filled with refugees.
Jamil told him that the legendary fortress which guarded the pass into Javon was the wartime retreat of the Ordo Costruo. After the Javon Settlement the Bridge-Builders had decided to take an open hand in politics; they had occupied and enlarged the fortress using the gnosis until the edifice, which could already break most human assailants, became utterly impregnable to anyone without magical means. During the first two Crusades, even the Rondians had left it alone. Right now its main function appeared to be to keep refugees out of Javon. The valley below its walls was awash with tents and campfires, and the most the Ordo Costruo was prepared to do for them was to send out food, though never enough.
‘How can anyone bring down such a place?’ Kazim wondered.
Jamil smiled grimly. ‘The way all strong places fall,’ he replied. ‘By treachery.’
*
By the end of the week, even more men had funnelled into the caves, turning the hot air thick with the smell of sweat and bodily wastes and making it hard to breathe. Most were soldiers of the sultan, there to overwhelm the enemy once the defences had been breached. Their captains all looked similar, like Jamil, with paler faces than most Keshi or Hebb. They were from a limited gene-pool, the children of Rondian magi captured and forced to breed over the past century.
Gatoz was in charge, and on the designated night he led the long column through torchlit passages deep below the ground towards the Krak. Kazim, hovering nearby, heard him saying to Jamil, ‘This was an old escape route, sealed off when the Ordo Costruo took possession of the fortress. The emir’s magi have secretly reopened the tunnels. The pro-Rondian faction remains ignorant.’ He l
icked his lips. ‘The nefari bastards think they are invincible. We’ll show them that there is no such thing.’
‘What is happening inside?’ Jamil asked.
‘Rashid placates them, twists them about his fingers. Tonight he will seek leadership by the vote, and if he is successful, he will gain control of the Order bloodlessly.’ Gatoz sounded almost offended by the word. ‘But if they resist, then he will strike, and we will strike with him.’
Kazim closed his eyes, searching his feelings. Antonin Meiros had been head of this order, and he’d been thought of by all of Antiopia as the most evil man alive. But Kazim had consumed the man’s soul, and now he knew him better than any. Meiros had not been an evil man at all. Were his Ordo Costruo any worse?
‘Do we have enough men for this?’ Jamil asked tersely.
Gatoz grunted. ‘Rashid leads the pro-shihad faction. Half the order – all the half-bloods and weaker – already follow him. The pure-blood whiteskins all follow Rene Cardien. They are stronger in power.’ He smiled sourly. ‘There will be blood, and lots of it.’ He looked straight at Kazim. ‘You are quiet, boy: do you have the stomach for this?’
Kazim felt his face colour. His courage challenged, his resolve to not use the gnosis wavered – exactly as Gatoz clearly intended. ‘Of course I do.’
*
The march underground was slow, tense and oppressive. Torches were thinly spread and they tramped in semi-darkness, the weight of the stone bowing their shoulders. Outside, it was daylight, but in here the night was eternal, and though it was barely a mile, it seemed to take forever. Then whispered orders passed ear to ear down the line, ordering silence and readiness, and most fell to their knees to pray wordlessly.
Kazim stretched his shoulders. Most of the sweating soldiers around him were poorly equipped; helms of some sort or other were prevalent, but few had armour and most held only poorly made scimitars. There were lots of them, though, so if they could be fully deployed, the magi might be overwhelmed. But if they were bottlenecked and confronted piecemeal … it didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Stay close, brother,’ Jamil muttered in his ear. ‘We have invested much time and energy into your training. I know you do not wish to use your new powers and I respect that. But you owe the Hadishah for all we have done for you. Repay us with obedience, and swiftness of action.’
The wait was interminable. Food was passed along the lines, tiny leaf-bowls of spiced rice and chicken, which some managed to keep down, but others with nervous stomachs couldn’t, adding the stench of vomit to the foetid air. It was a huge relief when the signal came and they trooped silently into corridors lined first with storage chambers and then habitable quarters. A dead Dhassan servant lay in a pool of blood just inside a side-corridor, and Kazim heard others locked behind closed doors they passed.
The attackers mustered in a large underground chamber that had huge doors in each wall. It was completely empty, except for the tapestries and banners of the Ordo Costruo. Gatoz ordered groups before each door, organising multiple launching points for the assault. ‘The magi are above us in the great hall,’ he told Jamil. ‘The fools elected Rene Cardien over Rashid.’ Kazim heard the satisfaction in his voice. ‘Tonight we sup on magi’s blood.’ Kazim didn’t think he was speaking metaphorically. ‘We move in two minutes.’
All eyes went to the door ahead as Gatoz went through it, only to return seconds later; he put a finger to his lips and waved them forwards. Kazim wished he’d taken the time to pee. A thousand fears surfaced – that this was a trap, that the magi were completely aware of their incursion and waiting to strike. He prayed as he had that night in Meiros’ house, for the courage to strike when he must. These are magi, they can incinerate armies. If Rashid has miscalculated we are dead.
They found themselves at the base of a wide spiral staircase and Gatoz waved them up. He briefly caught Kazim’s eye, but there was little hint of recognition. The bastard would rather I died in this, Kazim thought. He gripped his scimitar tighter. Well, I won’t die. They padded onwards, upwards, then someone shouted aloud in Rondian and there came a faint roaring sound.
Jamil caught his arm. ‘Stay with me brother!’ Their eyes met, and Kazim could read all the decades of hatred there. Jamil was normally a coldly dispassionate fighter, but today was different: today he was being given the chance to strike directly at the enemy he hated and feared most: the magi. ‘Ahm is great!’ he cried. ‘Tonight we dine with magi or with God!’
‘Forward! Ma’sha Ahm!’ Gatoz roared from below. ‘Ma’sha Ahm!’
God’s will be done.
The tramp of feet became a roll of thunder, battle-cries boiled through the air and a vivid blast of light flashed within the rooms above.
‘Onwards,’ called Jamil, his arms raised as they topped the stairs and found a courtyard. A thin line of Rondian soldiers formed before them, their faces white with fear. The invaders surged forwards, but before they reached the enemy line all of the windows above blew out with a tremendous crack, showering the defenders with glass. Kazim saw one go down shrieking, speared by a foot-long shard of window; another was taking aim at him with a crossbow when he jerked and fell as something like lightning flew from Jamil’s hand. Almost subconsciously he opened his gnosis-sight. If he willed, it he could probably do just as Jamil had done – but he shied from using his stolen power, despite the energies crackling inside.
It’s what Sabele and Rashid want me to do: surrender to the power. I refuse.
He reached the thin enemy line almost before he was ready, carried forward by the momentum of the charge. He battered aside a spear with his shield-rim and thrust his scimitar into a soldier’s neck, sent him writhing to the ground with blood spurting skywards in a scarlet spray. Another loomed behind and launched a clumsy overhand blow. He blocked it easily, counter-slashing across the man’s face, and watched him drop before leaping through a gap after Jamil, then spinning to smash his shield into the back of a Rondian crossbowman’s neck. He heard bones crack as the man arched his back and he went down. Kazim’s blood was up now. Weapons flashed on all sides, grazing his arms, his side. A helm flew free, revealing a boy not even twenty who looked at Kazim numbly as his blade punctured his chest, then his eyes emptied as he sagged to the stone.
Just a kid …
There was no time to dwell on it. Jamil blasted open a door and Kazim leapt through, his curved blade crashing against the straight sword of an officer, a portly man with a shaggy moustache. He was out of shape, foolish-looking, and Kazim flicked through the man’s defences in a moment, slashing open his throat then spinning away even as his enemy fell choking, only to almost die transfixed on two spears determinedly wielded by two men working in concert.
But Jamil fired a bolt of light into the nearest of them, his shriek echoing in the marble hall, and a Keshi man leapt ahead of them both, a howling dervish singing a hymn to Ahm. He almost beheaded the first spearman, the one Jamil had burned, then the second buried his spear in the Keshi’s chest. The Rondian released the spear and drew his sword. He looked at Jamil, his eyes terrified.
‘Magus?’ he croaked, backing up. On the ground the dervish choked his life away like a spitted fowl.
‘Mine,’ Kazim shouted. He leapt and swung, forcing the man to block high, then low. To his credit, the Rondian swiftly countered, a blow Kazim barely parried, and went for him again with a bloodcurdling yell. Kazim feinted a slash, then resolved into a straight thrust, his weight half-forward, and the Rondian took the scimitar in his thigh. He stumbled, and the rest was butchery. Jamil surged past and Kazim was borne along in a crowd of Keshi fighting men.
The far door revealed stairs, and a roar like thunder carrying from above, together with the screams of men and women, magi fighting magi.
The thought of wading into that maelstrom made Kazim waver, but Jamil pulled him aside. ‘We follow the first wave, brother. Don’t get caught in the front!’ Then he raised his voice and bellowed, ‘Up the stairs! Kill them all!
God is great!’
The Keshi flooded upwards, whipped on by Jamil’s shouts. For maybe half a minute they ran unimpeded, then they recoiled and stopped. ‘On! On!’ Jamil shouted, searing the air over his men’s heads. ‘On!’
The mass of men lurched slowly forwards again as the clash of steel reverberated above.
Kazim found himself pushed upwards in a sweating, heaving press as they stumbled into a cloudy miasma of heat and burned meat. Something rumbled, and the whole building shook. He shoved the man in front of him, frightened to be so enclosed, while he in turn was pushed by a fat Keshi warrior with a spear and no helm.
Suddenly a flying shape swooped down the stairwell, a white-skinned woman in an apricot ballgown, her pale hair unbound. Gems glistened on her fingers and throat, and the air about her crackled with light. A wash of fire jetted from her hands and charred a group of Keshi on the stairs. A male magus joined her, holding a crossbow that spat bolts every few seconds. The Keshi hurled spears that clattered harmlessly against unseen shields, then the man in front of Kazim took a crossbow bolt in his chest that punched straight through him and pinned him to Kazim’s shield. He lost the shield as the man fell. The magus was looking right at him as he fired again, but he dropped, and the fat man behind him took the bolt through his right eye. A recoil of fear ran through the press of men, who started tumbling down the stairs, tripping those who came behind.
Kazim looked up as the magus alighted on the balustrade and backhanded a man across the throat; his bare hand severed the Keshi man’s spine. Behind him, the woman poured flames down the stairwell, and then gaped in surprise as Jamil threw a bolt back at her. It rebounded against her shields and she cried, ‘Another traitor magus!’ Her voice was outraged.
