‘Stop saying you,’ Crys said, ‘it’s us, all right? You’re coming with us.’
‘We might not break them,’ Mace said. ‘We might just drive them before us. That means as soon as they’re out they turn and hold us underground if they can. They’ll block the trapdoor.’
‘Then we don’t let them,’ Tara said. ‘We do this like a ladder drill, stick so fucking close to them we can smell their shit as they climb the tunnel in front of us. We can climb ladders faster than they can run on the flat. Classic bridgehead tactics – we come up swinging and we make a space, let the next man up and the next. Don’t give them time to organise, don’t give them time to breathe. When they come up into that house we come up one stride behind them. If we don’t we’re dead.’
‘That’s our plan,’ Mace said. ‘Send word now. Go.’
‘Oh goody,’ Rillirin mumbled, ‘another battle.’
‘Rillirin, make that count two thousand. I’ve a feeling we’re going to need every man we can find.’ Mace groaned and flexed his leg until his knee clicked. Run a few miles fighting a battle, uphill, then sprint up a ladder and defend a bridgehead. All the while trying not to drown, dragging a half-dead girl and wearing fifty pounds of armour.
‘Join the Ranks, see the world, die in the dark,’ he heard Crys mutter.
‘All right,’ Mace said with a warning look at Crys, ‘let’s get ready.’
TARA
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Corvus
Yew Cove tunnels, River Gil, Western Plain
Tara’s sword was gone, lost in a corpse somewhere in another tunnel, another life. She’d taken a hatchet from a body and strapped a lightweight spearman’s buckler on to her left arm. Crouching in the dancing light of torches, dried blood a mask down her face, hatchet swinging idly by her side, she was terrifying.
And terrified.
Men were flooding into the tunnels behind her, loud and panicked as the news spread. Lim and Mace were doing their best to quiet them.
The Mireces around the next bend must number fifty or more. Tara’s assault force was thirty. She rubbed at the cut on her forehead, wincing, and shook out her shoulders. ‘We can’t let them know about the others, or that we’ve guessed the ruse. If we do we’ll have an all-out assault on our hands,’ she hissed. Men and women nodded, grim.
‘Time to get massacred then,’ Crys said, sounding almost cheerful.
Tara blinked at him. ‘If you like. Personally I’m going to kill eleven of them and then run like a rabbit.’
‘Eleven?’ Crys thumped his chest. ‘I’m killing twelve.’
‘Pussies,’ Sarilla grunted. ‘Fifteen.’
Tara found she was grinning, and then that she was running and howling down the tunnel and around the bend.
The Mireces’d heard them coming, of course, and there were far too many of them, but Tara kicked water into the face of the first and chopped her hatchet into his jaw as he blinked. Bottom of his face came off and she was on to the next, taking his swing on her buckler and hacking low, into the side of his knee. Sarilla’s sword flashed past Tara’s hip and took him in the chest as he fell and they were pressing forward again, tight in a wedge and slowly being surrounded.
Tara jerked up her left foot as an axe swung for it, kicked the man in the elbow, landed close on his off side and the hatchet went in at the waist three times, then sought out the spot below the ear and ended him.
Chest heaving, she ducked under her buckler and nearly got her shoulder smashed, the impact huge and numbing her arm. But Crys was on the man’s other side and he couldn’t defend against them both and she hamstrung him while Crys aimed for his head. Between them they cut him on to his knees in the water and Tara chopped the hatchet into the back of his neck.
More yells, shouts of Mireces alarm, and Wolves and Rankers poured into the tunnel, Mace and Lim and Ash in the lead, fighting like a six-armed beast as they waded towards the cut-off group.
Tara ducked a swing, but took the next two on her buckler as the man battered at her, driving her into the ground like a nail. Her arm would break soon, the blows were so heavy, and she was stuck in the press of bodies, couldn’t slip sideways and he knew it, grin splitting his beard. He cackled as he readied for the next strike and all Tara could do was poke at him with the head of the hatchet: no room to swing.
The sword came up like the sun and Tara charged him, one step only but she dropped her hips, angled her shoulders behind the buckler and slammed up against his chest. His strike wobbled and missed and now he was too close for the blade anyway, shoving at her with his free hand and she screamed in his face and kept pushing: no other ideas except to be too close for him to stab her.
And then two swords sprouted from his chest and a long arm wrapped around her waist and dragged her away. Mace.
‘The fuck, Major?’ Mace growled.
Tara blinked. ‘Major? You’re promoting me?’ she asked as Rankers poured around them and killed the last of the Mireces in this section.
‘Figured it’d be the only way to force you to listen to my orders. Now move. This is it. We’ve got the momentum; we’re making the break. Run.’
‘What’s the count?’ she panted.
‘Not enough, but they’re on the back foot and the sounds from the dam just got a lot scarier. So move.’
Tara turned into the line the others were making, the tunnel for now free of living Mireces, and together they began, again, to run, the press of Wolves and Rankers behind them forcing them on, faster and faster. No stopping now, even if she wanted to.
DURDIL
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Commander’s quarters, the palace, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
Durdil was writing another letter he’d never be able to send anywhere when a commotion erupted outside his door.
‘No, no, what are you doing? You—’ Hallos’s voice raised in a shriek and suddenly cut off, a brief scream and then a triple thud against the door.
Durdil leapt from his chair, wooden plate in one hand, eating knife in the other. He flattened himself behind the door and waited for it to open. It swung in and he held his breath. No one entered.
‘Major Renik and Hallos the physician,’ Renik said. ‘Time to go, sir.’
‘Step inside,’ Durdil ordered even though he knew speaking would give away his location. He had to make sure it was really them, that they weren’t being coerced.
Renik’s hands appeared around the door first, outstretched and empty, spattered with blood, and he came in sideways, facing Durdil and presenting himself as the largest possible target in a show of good faith. Hallos copied him.
Durdil threw himself against the door, expecting it to ricochet off someone else, but it slammed shut.
‘The Mireces have been sited at Shingle. They’re marching overland and will be here by tonight. The East Rank left its harbour two hours ago – it will also be here by tonight. Galtas Morellis leads them. We suspect Rivil’s been co-ordinating them from here, sir, getting the intel in from the West Rank and forwarding it to the East, ensuring both his forces arrive at the same time. Didn’t get a chance to destroy the market, it was supposed to be tonight but I suspect we’re going to fighting by then.’ Renik ran out of breath and stopped talking.
‘We’re rescuing you,’ Hallos added in case Durdil hadn’t grasped the situation.
‘Your sword and armour are outside, sir,’ Renik said. ‘I think we’re going to have company soon.’
Durdil gestured to Hallos to open the door and studied his body language as he exited, just in case there was an ambush waiting. He decided not, threw the plate and knife to one side and followed Renik out. His armour was stacked next to the bodies of four guards. Durdil raised an eyebrow. ‘Nicely done.’
‘Hallos got one. The man’s a bloody menace with a scalpel.’
Hallos beamed. ‘Knowing where to knife someone is somewhat a speciality of mine,’ he chuckled and Durdil gr
abbed him by the coat.
‘You’re nervous, I can see that,’ he said, ‘but I need you to shut up and do as you’re told, all right? Chatter at the wrong moment is extremely likely to get us all killed.’
Hallos sucked one end of his moustache into his mouth and chewed it. ‘I understand,’ he said, the edge of hysteria fading from his expression. ‘Sorry.’
Renik helped Durdil on with his armour and gave him the highlights. ‘Rivil is in control of everything. I haven’t seen the king for three days, Rivil says he’s ill but Hallos isn’t allowed to tend him.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Wouldn’t think so. Rivil would announce that as soon as he could, wouldn’t he? No, Rivil’s got him locked up somewhere.’
‘If we kill Rivil, the Mireces will come anyway. They’re fighting for the gods. But if Rivil kills Rastoth, then Rivil becomes king and we become traitors for opposing him. He’ll be within his rights to trample Rilporin into submission. So our priority is the king,’ Durdil said. ‘Protect the king, and then capture Rivil if we can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Renik said as Hallos came hurrying back down the corridor.
‘Someone’s coming,’ he hissed.
‘Let’s move. King’s quarters, queen’s quarters, Janis’s quarters, in that order,’ Durdil said and hurried in the opposite direction. ‘After that we’ll be searching room by room.’
They sprinted down the corridor and around a corner, ducked into a servants’ passageway and Renik drew his sword; servants shrieked and dived for cover and, with luck, none of them would waste time looking over Renik’s shoulder and recognising Durdil.
Hallos was spry for such a burly figure, and the trio ran down corridors and across audience chambers, through the kitchens and along the plush corridors of the king’s wing until they reached his chambers. There were no guards outside.
Renik went in first, sliding left and Durdil ducking right. Empty.
‘Marisa’s chamber,’ Durdil panted, ‘he might be there.’
And there he was, with four guards stationed at her door, and Renik and Durdil put on a last burst of speed down the length of the corridor. One of the foursome turned to open the door and something silver blurred past Durdil’s ear and sank into the guard’s thigh. He howled and fell, clutching at the scalpel in his leg.
Durdil reached them and drove his sword whining through the air to a man’s neck. The guard slammed his sword up two-handed to block it and Durdil’s other fist came up and punched his dagger into the guard’s armpit. The man shrieked and the sword dropped from nerveless fingers and Durdil chopped him on to his knees, left him there bleeding and spun to the next, slicing through the vertebrae at the top of his neck where his helmet didn’t come down low enough.
Renik finished the third and grabbed the fourth by his uniform and dragged him up. ‘Where’s Rivil?’ he demanded as Durdil slid past them into the queen’s suite.
‘My feet are on the Path,’ the man screeched and Durdil heard the sound of his throat being slit over Hallos’s exclamation of disgust.
Rastoth was huddled on Marisa’s bed with the coverlet pulled up to his chin. Durdil dropped to one knee in front of him. ‘Your Majesty, you are in mortal danger. Will you allow me to escort you to safety?’
The door slammed shut behind him and Rivil stepped forward. ‘My father has me to protect him,’ he said softly, ‘and besides, it is you who brings violence here, not me. You have killed my men.’
Durdil’s fingers tingled with adrenaline and everything became very still and silent. ‘You are a traitor to your father, to your king and to your gods, Prince Rivil,’ he said. ‘You have nailed your feet to the Dark Path and exchanged Light for Blood. You seek to kill your father, overthrow his government, subjugate his people and outlaw worship of the Gods of Light. I’m afraid I can’t allow any of that to happen.’
‘Well, don’t you know a lot all of a sudden.’ Rivil smiled and stepped forward, his sword gleaming, his armour polished. ‘Who told you? Was it Wheeler, before you killed him?’
‘Wheeler really didn’t tell you who we had here? No, it was Captain Crys Tailorson, Your Highness. The good captain told me everything when he was here in the palace beneath your very nose. He’s the one who killed Wheeler before he escaped.’
Rivil stilled, genuine surprise flitting across his face, and Durdil leapt. Rastoth shrieked as their swords clashed together once, twice, and then they separated, circling like dogs as Renik hammered at the door.
‘Sire, stay out of the way,’ Durdil called as Rivil lunged at him again, trying to force him sideways, clear a path to the bed. Durdil refused to be moved, taking a blow on his pauldron instead that numbed his arm. Rivil pushed, hammering again and again at Durdil’s shoulder, Durdil’s blade intercepting most of the blows but not all. He gave ground, Rivil taller than him, stronger than him. Younger than him.
‘What are you doing to my boy?’ Rastoth suddenly squalled and Durdil felt something hit the back of his helmet. A pillow. Rastoth was throwing pillows at him.
‘Your Majesty, the prince is trying to kill me in order that he can kill you,’ he shouted as another pillow bounced off his elbow. As long as he doesn’t throw the—
The coverlet drifted down over his head, blinding him. Rivil laughed; Durdil lunged, his sword tip scraping across armour. The door burst open, Rastoth shrieked, Rivil cursed and he heard footsteps sprinting through into the next chamber.
He fought his way out from under the silk. Rastoth was lying twisted on the bed, hands glistening red and pressing at a bubbling wound in his chest.
‘Hallos,’ Durdil screamed, and followed Renik through into the next chamber, down the stairwell and into another servants’ corridor.
Carnage. A cook was sitting splay-legged on the floor, wailing and trying to stuff his guts back into his belly, a butler was face down with his spine showing through his coat, and further on Renik was staggering along the corridor, leaving a succession of bloody handprints on the wall.
‘Where?’ Durdil gasped and Renik pointed with his sword.
‘Straight on,’ he gasped and slid on to one knee. ‘Sorry.’
Durdil ran, his lungs screaming, the image of Rastoth bleeding beating in his head, and slammed through the door without slowing, sword and arm crossed over his face in a vain attempt at protection.
There was no one there. Three corridors branched off, no indication in any of them which way Rivil had gone. But one of them led outside. Durdil took that one, his gait heavy, legs slowing now, and burst out of the main doors of the palace into the assembly place. It was crowded and people were staring in shock and horror at the woman and child lying bloody on the cobbles.
‘What happened?’ Durdil shouted and there was screaming when people saw him, sweaty, bloody and armoured, sword in hand. ‘What?’ he yelled and someone pointed at the gate into Fourth Circle.
Durdil ducked to his right and looked down the King’s Way. Prince Rivil was galloping down it, a straight run for the distant gatehouse and the twin armies that were even now advancing towards the city.
Durdil threw his sword on to the ground. ‘Shit,’ he roared. ‘You, signal the guards, see if you can get the message to the gatehouse to drop the portcullis now. Nobody leaves the city and I mean nobody. Including royalty.’ He gestured. ‘Including him.’
The guard gaped and then nodded, sprinting for the gate tower leading into Fourth Circle. They’d be too late, Durdil knew it, but they had to try. He picked up his sword, sheathed it, and headed back into the palace.
Renik was injured, and Durdil had seen enough chest wounds to suspect the king was dying. He’d have to trust his men to stop the prince.
CRYS
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Yew Cove tunnels, River Gil, Western Plain
Crys watched his dagger sink into the man’s throat. He’d regret the throw soon enough, missing the extra steel in his free hand, but for now he had to push f
orward, make space for the hundreds of men crowding in behind him. Mace to his left, fast and deadly with the short sword despite his exhaustion. Ash on his other side, Lim and Dalli, Sarilla and Tara. They were all there, making up the front row, doing what each of them was bred for.
Crys stabbed into a chest, felt a heartbeat shiver up his sword into his hand as though he held it, and pulled out, letting the man fall, leaping the body to find another to kill, all the fear, the guilt bubbling up and up and overspilling. He heard himself shriek fury, the men and women around him responding, pushing on, killing and dying and breaking the line.
Crys’s sword tip raked open a face and he caught a glimpse of brown teeth before black blood gushed. The man screamed and Mace punched the wound, dropping him, stamping him into the stone. He’d be but smears of flesh on rock when they’d all passed over him.
Crys ducked a swing wild and big, dragging Mace down as well or the axe would have lodged in his face. They responded together, Mace cutting into the man’s groin, Crys into his axe-arm so the weapon clattered down and he followed it, screeching. Crys stepped, stamped, tripped and fell forward into the arms of a Raider with just one eye, the other a bloody black hole in his head. Moment of surprise when the Mireces caught him and shoved him back upright, then they were hacking away at each other. ‘Lady,’ the Mireces grunted as Crys’s sword found his belly.
‘Not down here, fucker,’ he snarled and took off his head. ‘This is the Fox God’s lair.’
The tunnel split into two, both sloping upwards, and men poured along each. Crys saw Sarilla stumble against the outcrop between the two tunnels and go down on one knee and heard Lim shout his wife’s name but neither of them could reach her and then Crys was down the right-hand tunnel and there was no fighting the current. The Rank had the bit between its teeth now – they stopped for nothing and no one.
Crys snatched a knife from a Raider’s hand, grinned and stabbed it into his face, through the cheek into the mouth, through the eye, the mouth again. Screaming around steel, muffled, gagging, and down he went; the tunnel was so narrow there were only three of them abreast and the Mireces finally, finally, broke into a run, turning their backs.
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