Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  Behind the defence, the enemy was moving to cover their artillery. Archers and swordsmen turned from the walls to tackle them. Immediately, his own bowmen saw their chance. They emptied their quivers into the backs of the enemy, forced infantry to put up a shield wall to defend them. For a moment, the pressure on the wall eased.

  'Come on,' said Gesteris. 'Make it count.'

  The attrition rate on the riders was so high. Gesteris saw the flash of a cloak as a man took an arrow in the throat. Levium. So often a name to curse, now one to raise in chant and cheer. The leading riders thundered past the artillery. They swerved in close to the thin pike line defending it. In the half-light, Gesteris saw the glitter of glass and watched the hypnotic sight of torches turning end over end.

  The Tsardon were unprepared for it. Sheets of flame spread across ground and wood. They ate into rope and weakened stay, bracket and cup. Six or seven artillery pieces were engulfed. Tsardon ran to try and beat out the flames. His archers turned their attention on them, those with any shafts left.

  Every moment the fires were alight was a moment the battle turned just ever so slightly. Gesteris saw an onager arm twist and fall to the side, its rope spring burned through. On the rampart his infantry cheered. The levium, what few remained, galloped away west and were lost to sight. The enemy was going to lose more than half of its remaining artillery to the fires.

  But the Tsardon weren't done. The battering ram struck its decisive blow and the gates splintered. Above it, the gatehouse rocked. Tsardon flooded into the compound. At the rear of the stockade, flame rose hot. Legionaries stumbled away while outside, dragging poles were pulling at the weakening wood. Gesteris needed to get some of his people out to counter them before he was attacked back and front. He looked up into the sky. Dawn was still hours away. When it came, he wondered if it would be the last for the Conquord.

  They were all up before dawn broke, crowding the bow of the Hark's Arrow. All night, there had been lights from the south and southeast, growing brighter. When the sun finally cast its light on the home waters of Estorea and the western limits of the Tirronean Sea, Jhered saw much more than he had feared.

  At best guess, two hundred sails chased them from the south-east. The Hark's Arrow was a mile ahead and would reach the harbour mouth before them but not by much. South, the first sails he saw were not of the Ocetanas. They were some distance behind and would not catch the Tsardon before they entered Estorr less than five miles away. The invasion would see the Omniscient-blessed city crumble to dust.

  The light was picking out her most glorious towers and playing off the aqueducts. He could see the palace, glittering as it always did in the dawn. The city rose as if in welcome to the sun, white, red and beautiful.

  'Take a good look, children,' he said. 'This is a sight all should be given the chance to see. And you're going to be among the last. Are you listening to me?'

  It was plain enough that they weren't. Arducius and Mirron were deep in conversation. Ossacer stood by them, sullen, his eyes closed. Only Kovan was staring as he should be and he'd seen it all before.

  'You'll regret this when it's all so much smoke and ash,' said Jhered. 'This is the best sight in the Conquord. In the world.'

  'How wide is the harbour?' asked Arducius.

  ‘I, well, I don't know.' Jhered didn't know whether to be irritated or confused by the question.

  'Three hundred yards, fort to fort,' said the skipper who had been standing with them scanning the situation with his own magnifier.

  The Ascendants disappeared into another brief conversation. Arducius spoke up again. 'We need to get in close.'

  'Close? I'm going all the way to the dockside and then running into the hills,' said the skipper. 'What was it you had in mind?'

  'No, we have to stop outside the harbour,' said Mirron.

  'Why?' asked Jhered.

  'Because,' said Arducius. 'We have to use the sea outside the harbour because it has greater energy about it and if we don't, the wave won't be wide enough.'

  Jhered looked over at the harbour. 'You mean to block the entrance.'

  'But if I'm not close enough, I won't be able to control the energies, not even with Mirron to help me.'

  Jhered turned to the skipper. 'Let's get that sail down. I want double time all the way home. This is not over.'

  Iliev pounded the forward rail, the only outlet for his impotence and frustration. They were closing on the enemy all the time but still two miles behind. Two miles that meant the difference between invasion and sanctuary. They had seen the fleets to the east. The Tsardon rowing strongly, one ship well ahead of the rest of the fleet but being caught slowly. Patonius had said she thought it a Conquord vessel but Iliev wasn't so sure. If it was, he wished them luck and the grace of Ocetarus. Far too distant, other ships from the eastern docks of Kester Isle followed. By the time they reached the harbour, it would all be over.

  The sky was a pearl white today. A thin covering of cloud and a bright sun just without the strength to break through. The winds of the last days that had risen again this morning had blown away the early dusasrise mist and Iliev reflected that at least the good folk of Estorr would see the end of the Conquord approaching.

  There was no way to bring more speed to the fleet. No wind that would carry them fast enough to take the enemy by surprise. Despite all their prayers to Ocetarus, the weather had remained doggedly reasonable, allowing the Tsardon to keep far enough ahead that even the Ocenii could not hope to catch them.

  'We were a day too long in the docks,' he muttered. 'Just a day and look what it has cost us.'

  'Don't blame yourself, Karl,' said Patonius, leaning on the rail next to him with a magnifier to her eye. 'If we'd left a day earlier we would not have been disguised, they would have seen us, sunk us and we would not even have got this far.'

  'Then we should have had better warning,' he said. 'We should have been alerted from the southern watchtowers on the Isle.'

  'Why are you doing this? Is this some sort of bizarre cathartic ritual, preparing your mind for failure? You know why you weren't alerted. The Tsardon didn't sail into the Isle until they were ready to attack. They used the mists like the Ocetanas have done for generations.'

  Iliev saw her stiffen and take her eye from the magnifier briefly. She wiped the end with a cloth and looked again. 'Karl, look to the harbour.'

  Iliev did. There was a shadow growing near it. It must be a trick of the light. Frankly, he wasn't too worried about that. It was what was happening closer that brought new hope to his heart. The pair of them stared at each other for a moment.

  'Oars, maximum stroke!' yelled Patonius. 'Ready the corsair. Signal the fleet for battle. The Tsardon are turning.'

  Arducius knelt at the stern of the vessel with Mirron by him to help channel and amplify. The ship had been turned away from the harbour. The crew were nervous. They'd been told what to expect and he'd seen them all clutching keepsakes and praying to their god of the sea. Now it was down to him, and every spare man was watching him.

  In Estorr, warning gongs, bells and horns had sounded at sight of the Tsardon fleet. Across the water, he could hear the thud of drumbeats and the cries of crews straining every muscle. They would be on top of the Hark's Arrow before the hourglass was a quarter through.

  'Feel the power of the tide,' said Arducius. 'Feel the swell beneath the keel and the slumbering energies. Open your mind to the circle it creates. Bring it to you.'

  'I feel it, I see it,' said Mirron.

  Arducius could see the immense resonant power of the water, the mesh of lines that ran through it, dark red and thick as his body, pushing, pulling. Or so it seemed. Their energy maps were joined, bright and glorious with the life that flooded into them, held in check by the closure of their lifelines. Slowly, slowly, Arducius reached out with his mind and his right hand. Combined, they could exert the right sort of control. Arducius gasped as he opened his life circuit and joined it with the ocean.

  S
uch unbelievable force. He would not have to amplify it at all but it would take all his strength merely to hold it. Water climbed the side of the ship in response. It swept around his knees, up his body and away over the stern to complete the circuit.

  'Steady, Mirron. Can you feel it trying to wash you away.'

  'Yes.'

  That was how it felt. Like they were part of the wave motion and of the swell that formed the ocean. Arducius knew what he had to do. When the swell came in, he let it flow until it almost reached the blank dark that represented the harbour forts. And there he stopped it going in or out. He let the next wave roll into his static one and push the whole mass higher.

  Each time he did, he felt the drag on his energy, the drain on his life to hold that of the ocean still. More and more he built. The boat moved towards the growing wall of water that was climbing straight from the ocean around it. He heard the skipper bark an order and the oars begin to dip, taking them away from the base.

  'Enough, Arducius, enough,' said Mirron.

  'Hold on,' he said. 'Paul wants fear. We can give him that.'

  Wave after wave fed into the towering barrier. He could see it grow. Twenty feet, forty, sixty. He wanted a mountain. A living, vibrant mountain shimmering in the morning sun. Its outline wavered. Wind picked off the cap, turning it into a fine spray. He could hear a gentle bass roar too, as the water rolled around itself in the wall, churning gently.

  He felt himself shiver and had to stop building. He admired what he had done. It stood a hundred feet high, maybe more, and sixty across its base. It rose from the ocean like a giant's palm; the flickering cap was its fingers, tattering and reforming in the wind. It reached from fort to fort. It was magnificent.

  'Get through that,' he muttered.

  But he wondered how long he and Mirron could keep it that way. He wondered if he really could buy enough time for the Ocetanas to get here.

  In a corner of the palace of Estorr, Hesther clung to Arvan Vasselis while the rest of the Echelon stared down at the barrier in front of the harbour forts. Crowds were gathering on the dockside. The Order were out in force very quickly, to denounce the force as a punishment of the Omniscient.

  One moment, they had been watching the large Tsardon fleet approach. The next, the water had massed and climbed into the air faster than a man could walk. The crowd had begun to panic. People were running away from the dock or kneeling to pray. Others stood and gaped at the wall that could sweep the dockside clean away. The sound of the citizens was ugly, angry and terribly frightened.

  Hesther was crying but she didn't know if it was in happiness, relief or fear.

  'They're out there,' she managed. 'Dear God, Arvan, our children are out there.'

  The battle was going against them. Dawn was beginning to banish the shadows and as inevitably as the sun's rise, the Tsardon were winning. The levium had taken out as much of the enemy artillery as they could. Elise Kastenas had destroyed the steppe cavalry. But the former was lost somewhere behind the enemy and the latter in charge of horses too exhausted to take another step.

  The Tsardon had taken the gatehouse and the artillery up there was destroyed, sabotaged by its own crews. There was fighting deep into the compound. The rear wall was torn away along a fifty-yard length. Gesteris was trapped. Davarov and Cartoganev hadn't managed to force their way to the stockade's wall. Even the artillery was stuttering. Ammunition was in short supply and they'd suffered breakdown after breakdown as the temperature plummeted through the night and ropes snapped or wood cracked under the strain.

  The Conquord was losing heart. Roberto could feel it. His legionaries were utterly spent, the effects of the march claiming them at last. The Tsardon had known that to hold them would be to beat them and it was going to happen unless he could think of a way to break them. What he needed most was the white and gold banner to fly from the beacon in the Gaws.

  Down to the left, that was where the key to the battle lay. He couldn't commit any more infantry from his stretched and fatigued main line. Davarov would fight all day but even he needed some encouragement. Roberto chewed his lip and gauged the distance to the walls he was desperate to free. It would be a risk but he felt he had to try it. He kicked his heels to his horse and rode for Neristus and the artillery. All the way, he had his eyes on the beacon fire, willing the banner to be raised.

  'Come on, Paul, don't let me down.'

  The skipper of the Hark's Arrow dragged his tiller round hard and drove the ship back across the front of the wave. Jhered saw the disbelief in his eyes and knew his own were mirrors of it. He hardly dare look at it, teetering above them, its great crest gnawing at it, desperate to fall and swamp them all.

  And it had worked so well for a time. Every ship in sight had turned to flee and the taunts of the crew had hidden their own fear. He could imagine the confusion and consternation. Thousands of superstitious sailors would have seen a gate of water rise up from the ocean and slam shut the way into Estorr harbour right in their faces. Dear-God-embrace-him but he had wanted to run, too.

  Further south, the Ocetanas had come on and were engaging the vessels that had turned more or less straight into their path. But plenty remained free of attack and the braver amongst them had decided to come for a closer look. It had been five at first, realising that the Hark's Arrow was the key to it all. To sink her would remove the problem.

  The skipper had enough manoeuvres in him to outwit them but now another twenty were coming and more were turning to do the same. The Ocetanas did not have enough ships to come to their rescue.

  'We have to go further out,' said the skipper. 'I'm going to get stuck against this damned wall.'

  'No.' Jhered looked to the aft hatch. Ossacer had put his head out. 'You can't move away. Look at him. He's already struggling. Mirron is shaking, I can see it in her life map. Try to imagine him holding two ropes together while teams try and pull them apart. If you move away, you are pulling harder. Eventually he will lose his grip. And if he does that, the wave will just subside.' 'Down!' yelled the skipper.

  Jhered ducked reflexively. A scorpion bolt slammed through the port rail, crossed the deck and tore out through the starboard. He jerked back to his feet. A Tsardon trireme was heading directly at their aft section. It had appeared from behind a decoy travelling across their path.

  'Stroke thirty,' called the skipper.

  He leaned hard on the tiller. The trireme missed them to stern. Arrows whistled across the deck. Jhered threw himself across Ossacer.

  'What do you suggest we do?' he said, rolling away.

  Ossacer looked up at him. Jhered felt uncomfortable every time he did that. Those were eyes that saw nothing and everything.

  'How many ships are chasing us and how many are heading in from the east and how near are they?'

  Jhered peered above the gunwale. Tsardon ships were everywhere, converging on their position. He counted twenty in an inner circle, another ten outside and away east, another thirty or forty making their way back in. He relayed the information.

  Ossacer nodded and helped himself to his feet. His gaze never left Jhered's and an expression of abiding sadness and regret crossed it that stole Jhered's heart for a moment.

  'We have to use the energy in the wall,' he said. 'Reverse it.'

  Jhered frowned, i beg your pardon?'

  'We have make it fall straight down. Cause a whirlpool and suck them all down.'

  The wall of water loomed massive and lethal right above them. It had a sound of its own, a sucking, roiling noise that spoke of dreadful power.

  it'll kill us, too. Drag us to the bottom.'

  'We're dead already. And this way, more of the enemy come with us and more of the Ocetanas escape it because they are far enough away. Arducius has to use the energy he's stored up before the Tsardon get him.'

  i thought you only sought to help, not harm,' said Jhered.

  i don't want my brother to die thinking he failed.'

  'And what about you, Ossie?'<
br />
  Ossacer smiled. 'I will die knowing he didn't fail too.'

  Jhered had to look away. He caught the skipper's eye and the big man nodded that he'd heard and accepted. The Tsardon were closing the net. Any hope they had of escaping was being blocked off. Jhered shook his head. He hadn't expected to die on the ocean.

  'Go talk to your brother. Just do it quickly. I'll be right behind you.' Ossacer moved away. 'Ossacer.'

  'Yes?'

  'Proud of you, young man. Really proud.'

  Iliev landed on the deck and ducked a wild sword thrust. He came up quickly and stabbed the sailor up through his chin and into the roof of his mouth. He dragged the blade clear, swung left and knocked a blow aside with his dagger. He kicked out straight, taking the man in the stomach. He staggered back. Iliev jumped and planted a foot in his chest, sending him slithering across the deck. He made to rise but another of the Ocenii put a blade through his throat. The deck was clear.

  'Ocenii, let's get this ship turned. It is going in the wrong direction.'

  The battle was going with them. The Tsardon ships fleeing the wall had met a dense and concerted ramming charge from every Conquord vessel. The Ocenii squads were amongst them, taking on the ships at the back of the enemy fleet, hitting them as they tried to turn back east. He was proud of the Ocetanas. They felt the same fear as their opponents but they had overcome it. And now the tide of the fight was with them.

  His men were below already, subduing oarsmen. Two ran to the tiller and began to move it to port. Slowly, the trireme turned away from the water cliff and again, Iliev caught himself staring at it. He murmured thanks to Ocetarus for it was surely his work. Yet it terrified him. Nothing could create that in nature. Some force was at work. He had to believe it was the hand of God. It was the only thing that kept him and his squad from running.

  The ship wasn't turning fast enough. Hardly an oar was dipping. The sluggish turn was exacerbated by the drag of the corsair. The spike was buried in its side, high up because the Ocetanas needed to capture triremes, not sink them. He ran to the hatch amidships.