by Tom Lloyd
‘And they have more ammunition to hand than they’ll need for this small force,’ Ayel added complacently.
‘I would quake with fear,’ said the massive white-eye solemnly, ‘but I have a city to conquer. General Gaur, signal the advance.’
Amber gave a start as the deep horns were sounded. He had not expected any troops to be put in the firing line. The horns were followed a moment later by the heavy thump of Menin war drums. Two teams of drummers working in unison, shirt-less despite the cold weather, were clustered around the eight-foot high drums carried by massive ox-like beasts from the Waste. He felt a shudder run through his body at the hypnotic rhythm, the insistent background to all his years of fighting.
On his left he saw Captain Hain, grinning even wider than before.
‘Put that broken tooth away,’ Amber advised quietly as the Bloodsworn trotted off at a canter. He was unsurprised to see his own troops held position; even with Major Darn to command them it was unthinkable that he’d be excluded from their ranks in battle.
The two men looked out towards Tor Salan, straining to catch sight of movement there as the Menin cavalry regiments answered the call to advance and started out towards the city. In less than a minute there came from the city an answering call, a reply to their challenge.
‘Here comes your instruction,’ Ayel spat. ‘Mark it well!’
Amber saw a flicker of irritation cross Styrax’s face, a rare thing, and enough to warn those who knew the white-eye lord. In the blink of an eye Lord Styrax had taken a long stride back, drawn Kobra, his broadsword, turned with blinding speed and lunged forward, all in one smooth movement.
Captain Hain was unable to stifle a gasp at his lord’s unnatural speed, but no one moved as Lord Styrax stood with his arm fully extended over the high priest’s shoulder . . .
Then Ayel reeled away, clutching his head, and a girlish shriek cut the air as he fell to his knees. Amber looked at his lord’s sword: there, caught between the hand-length fangs at the sword’s point, was the high priest’s ear, severed as cleanly as if by a surgeon.
‘Kohrad,’ growled Lord Styrax to his son, ‘pick him up and explain a few things to him, would you?’ A practised flick sent the ear bouncing over the scrappy tufts of grass; what little blood remained on the magical blade was swiftly and greedily absorbed by the metal.
The younger white-eye bounded forwards and grabbed Ayel by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet. He proceeded to slap the man around the face until his cries of pain quietened into sobs. ‘That you are still alive is a gesture of goodwill towards your lord,’ Kohrad snarled, his face barely three inches from Ayel’s, ‘but I promise you, if I ever see you again after you’ve carried our message to Afasin, I’ll feed you to the minotaurs.
‘Now, stand up and bear witness to what happens here today so that you may report every detail faithfully. Perhaps this will teach you about underestimating the Menin. You think we’re savages because we crossed the Waste? You think we’re fools, just because we’re not natives of these parts?’
Amber caught some garbled words of protest, some begging, but it was cut short when Kohrad smashed a mailed fist into the High Priest’s gut.
‘Heard of Eraliave? The Elven general? No? Some say he was even better than Aryn Bwr, because he survived to old age.’
Amber could see the burning intensity in Kohrad’s eyes. When Amber had left the Menin Army to travel north last summer, surgeons and mages had been trying to remove the magical armour that had been driving Kohrad insane with bloodlust. Amber had heard the experience had left Kohrad a shadow of his former self, but he saw now a spark still remained.
‘In that old age, Eraliave wrote the classic treaties on warfare,’ Kohrad continued, hauling Ayel forward to a good vantage point. ‘One of his favourite sayings is particularly appropriate for this current situation: “A good general identifies his enemy’s weakest point and attacks it; a genius identifies his enemy’s strongest point and destroys it.” ’
‘The very words Lord Styrax spoke to me,’ whispered Hain beside Amber, ‘the day he gave me the assignment.’
‘The idea was yours?’
Hain gave a small shake of the head. ‘I wish I could claim it, but he led me to it by his words. Only a fool wouldn’t have worked it out.’
And so begin the lessons on how to think like more than a soldier, Amber thought wryly. I remember them well! Sadly, you won’t enjoy all of them quite so much.
Any further conversation was precluded by a new sound coming from the city. There were faint stirrings of movement on each of the hills. This far away it was hard to make out any detail, but because of what he had heard of Tor Salan’s defences, Amber had a good idea what was happening.
Curled up on the ground was an enormous hinged arm of steel, stone and brass, fifty feet long. The ‘shoulder’ of this arm was connected to a rampart of reinforced stonework, from which ran four narrow passages, like gutters. A throne-like seat of stone was set into the front, where the lead mage would sit facing the plain beyond. There were a dozen more mages in each of the channels, all feeding their power into the lead man, who focused it and used it to animate the arm. As blistering trails of magic ran up and down the arm’s brass rods, so the gigantic fingers would begin to twitch, then rise and flex as the arm itself rose up into the air. Within moments it would be ready to start grabbing rocks from the piles stacked untidily around the position and lob them with uncanny accuracy into any approaching army. The Giants’ hands would quickly decimate the troops; total destruction would not be far behind.
‘Look; there’s the first, far right,’ Hain whispered.
Amber saw the jerk of movement as one of the arms lifted into the air. From where they stood it looked like a stalk of corn shooting up in a field. No, Amber corrected himself, nothing so meek; a dog raising its hackles, perhaps, or a porcupine its spines.
In quick succession the other Hands rose jerkily into position. Amber couldn’t begin to estimate the amount of magic required to lift such weights; he guessed every one of the mages would be stretched to their utmost limits.
As the cavalry regiments cantered towards the Giants’ Hands in neat formation, the men in grey bearing their banner of negotiation had reached the halfway point. They were riding hard, as if desperate to keep ahead of the soldiers.
Let’s hope the dog doesn’t get nervous and snap at the first hand it sees, Amber thought.
The enormous weapons twitched as the grey men passed the range markers and continued. Several dipped, moving with remarkable speed and grace to grasp boulders and twist back into a throwing position, knuckles resting on the ground so the mages didn’t have to hold the weight indefinitely.
‘Come on, you bastards,’ breathed Hain, craning forward, ‘wait for your orders before firing, I don’t want to have to explain that to Lord Styrax.’
Despite himself, Amber grinned. Seconds passed and Hain’s prayers were answered as the group in grey passed unharmed, no hail of enormous bits of rubble filling the sky.
The Bloodsworn and the cavalrymen were still well short of the thousand-yard marker, and they would stop before they reached it, for they were only a feint. The battle - and the siege - would be won by that handful of men in grey cloaks. Amber found himself holding his breath as the delegation reached a safe point and stopped, supposedly waiting for emissaries from the city to come out and negotiate with them one final time.
But before Tor Salan’s mercenary captains could organise an official reception, the men in grey produced horns from under their cloaks and began to sound a crisp series of notes. Amber was too far away to hear the tune clearly, but he didn’t need to: he’d heard the same notes as they’d marched on Thotel: Chetse army orders, played on the long horns that curled around a man’s body.
The call to arms was played twice in quick succession, and in the silence that followed the men threw off their cloaks. For a moment nothing happened, then the horsemen turned and advanced on the
nearest Hand. The Land held its breath with Amber, waiting for the tipping point - which came in the form of a sudden flurry of activity around the Giants’ Hands as the ranks of infantry defending the mages formed up in protective wedges.
‘You have agents in place?’ mused Emissary Jerrer, a look of dispassionate curiosity on his face. ‘But how to deal with so many mages? And what about the defending soldiers? You surely cannot have an army of agents.’
‘A handful, no more,’ Lord Styrax replied, never taking his eyes off the city. It was clear that there was fighting going on. In no more than a minute the main gate of Tor Salan was opening and more troops were flooding out.
‘I confess you have me perplexed, my Lord,’ the emissary said. Amber could hear a hint of admiration in Jerrer’s voice.
‘It’s simple, Emissary; the defenders of Tor Salan quite rightly considered their newly recruited Chetse mercenaries to be ideal for the job of defending their most important weapons.’
‘And they were wrong to do so?’
‘Under normal circumstances, no. However, these are not normal circumstances, are they? The advance group I sent were not messengers, Emissary, but the tachrenn of the Ten Thousand, led by General Dev himself.’
‘The Ten Thousand?’ gasped Jerrer, suddenly realising what was going on. ‘You allowed those Chetse soldiers to travel north to become mercenaries, ensuring enough of the Ten Thousand were among them to carry opinion? And once they see their generals under your banner, they will turn on the remaining troops, their erstwhile comrades, and slaughter the mages? But there are hundreds of mages out there! Lord Styrax, surely your losses will be vast?’
‘Captain Hain?’
Hain flinched; he hadn’t been expected to be called upon to explain the plan, but when all faces turned to him he rallied and took up the explanation.
‘Lord Styrax suggested to me that such an expenditure of energy as would be required for the Giants’ Hands would require many rituals, and a careful bonding of power. Investigations showed that the mages are linked to each other, and thus cannot break those links quickly or easily.’ He cleared his throat noisily, his discomfort evident.
Amber felt a certain sympathy for the man: he’d been trained to combat; he’d not been taught how to lecture an audience of dignitaries in front of the tribe’s heroes. No one was looking at him, so he gave his captain a thumbs-up sign.
Hain nodded very slightly, gave himself a metaphorical shake and continued, ‘The magical energy is largely contained within the arm itself. It flows from the linked mages and is stored within the brass rods. With sufficient troops on the field the mages can be neutralised before they have started any significant defence.’
‘Neutralised.’ Jerrer looked startled by the word, as though ‘slaughtered’ would have sounded more acceptable.
‘This is war,’ said General Gaur in his deep, growling voice. ‘Unless the Patriarch of the Mosaic Council is more of a fool than our intelligence suggests, he will surrender the city and it will cost only a few hundred lives.’
‘But still, Tor Salan is a haven for mages - they are crucial to the city at all levels of society . . .’ Jerrer’s voice tailed off.
Mages were the backbone of many societies. The rest of the Land would take note of what happened in Tor Salan.
‘This will serve as a lesson,’ Gaur replied. ‘To oppose Lord Styrax is folly; the extent of damage done to any city-state will be dependent on how long it takes them to accept that.’
The beast-man was impassive as always. Amber had shared more than a few skins of wine with the general, but he had never been able to guess Gaur’s mood from his demeanour. You could tell when the half-human was thinking, because his jaw worked constantly, pushing his long lower canines through the tangled fur on his cheeks, but beyond that Gaur surpassed even the Dharai, the Menin warrior-monks, for impassiveness.
Looking back down to the action, Amber could see only a blurred mass of movement, presumably the Chetse mercenaries cutting down their former allies. Here and there flashes of light indicated at least a handful of mages had had the time to disengage and fight back, but the magical lights were only sporadic. One by one the Giants’ Hands wavered, then crashed to the ground.
The Menin cavalry had split in two, leaving a channel down the centre of the flood plain. Once they’d crippled the city’s principal defences, the Chetse would simply march away, with any pursuit held at bay by the Menin cavalry.
‘Captain,’ General Gaur called, ‘have our lord’s horse brought up.’
Hain saluted and signalled to someone, and in just a few moments horses for the whole group appeared, led by an enormous grey draped in Lord Styrax’s colours. The horse was fully nineteen hands, and bore a steel head-covering that had long fangs hanging on each side to mimic Styrax’s standard.
As they mounted up, Amber took the chance to whisper to Captain Hain, ‘Are you now going to tell me how you’re sure they’ll surrender so quickly?’
All ‘special duties’ carried an obligation of secrecy that transcended rank; Hain had been delighted to be forced to keep the details of his full operation a surprise for his superior. He grinned. ‘The Patriarch will give the order without consulting the entire council; he’ll be with his most important advisors already. Once he sees his six thousand Chetse kneel to Lord Styrax he’ll realise he has no choice.’
‘It will still be no simple task to take the city, even with this shifting of the balance.’
‘And so we don’t want to give him time to think too hard.’
‘Can we force it?’
‘Once we’re on the way, the message will be delivered. I hear the Raylin called Aracnan was in Scree, which is why we couldn’t find him for this task, but Lord Larim will manage just as well.’
‘Larim’s already in the city?’
‘The white-eye in him is looking forward to getting his hands dirty for a change!’
Amber pictured Lord Larim, the young Chosen of Larat, God of Magic, as they followed Lord Styrax out onto the plain. Larat’s devotees tended to leave the killing to others; no doubt Larim would consider this mission high entertainment.
‘What if the Patriarch doesn’t do as he’s told?’
Hain shrugged and Amber realised he’d asked a stupid question. ‘Then Larim will kill him and signal the attack. Wherever Lord Styrax intends to go next - west to Narkang or north to Tirah - we must control both of the great trading city-states, and if Tor Salan doesn’t surrender we’ll inflict such destruction upon it that the Circle City will not contemplate opposing us for even a minute.’
‘Sautin and Mustet won’t cause trouble unless we march to their doorsteps,’ said Amber, ’and that leaves Embere and Raland, both controlled by the Devoted - and both no doubt already preparing for us.’
‘Exactly, sir,’ Hain said cheerfully, ‘so we’ll get a fight this year after all!’
And we will build another monument to our lord with their skulls, Amber added privately.
CHAPTER 10
The sky was slate-grey, angry. A broken mountain burned in the distance, wreathed in black coils of smoke. The freezing wind pierced his ragged clothes as he struggled to find purchase in the churned mud underfoot. He staggered on over the ruined ground, exhausted, using his bloodstained sword for balance and fighting for every step, but it made no difference. The mountain came no closer, and the darkness behind advanced relentlessly.
Collapsing to his knees, he gasped for breath and looked around. The landscape was ruined; there were great furrows carved into the earth, and even the weeds were crushed and dead. Death was all around him, and despite an occasional discarded item - a helm here, a broken scabbard there - he saw no one else, neither alive, nor dead. The broken black tooth of the mountain seemed to loom over him, unreal and untouchable.
He dug his fingers into the mud and felt it suck them down. He wrenched his hand from the dead land’s grasp and tried to stand, but his legs rebelled as the darkness closed in
on him. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t voice his terror. He tried to lift his sword with what feeble strength he had left, but to no avail. The darkness bent over him, as insubstantial as smoke, until cold fingers grabbed him by the throat. He fell back and the mud welcomed him, burning as it drew him in, the hand at his throat pushing him inexorably down and down into the cold of the grave.
‘Can I guess why you chose this place?’
Isak turned his head to where Mihn was sitting, a motionless figure silhouetted against the light creeping through the warped boards.
‘Couldn’t it be that I just wanted somewhere out of the way and one stable’s as good as another?’ Isak gestured around at the hay loft they were sitting in. Oxen shifted in the gloom below. ‘It’s warmer than standing about in an alley, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed it is, but I suspect this is one stable you’ve been in before.’
Isak shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Doesn’t mean it’s significant.’
Isak doubted Mihn would be fooled. The taciturn northerner never indulged in idle chatter; he rarely initiated conversations at all, even if several months in Morghien’s company had made him a little more open. Morghien had lingered in Tirah for a fortnight before the road called too loudly and he gave in to his itinerant nature. During that time Isak had seen the unspoken bond between them, similar to the one he himself had with Mihn. It was as if Mihn had forgotten what it was to have friends, but was slowly getting used to the notion again.
‘I do think it significant, my Lord. You are not much of a romantic, so I doubt nostalgia is why we’re here.’
‘Are you mocking me?’
‘No, Isak, I’m concerned. Scree has changed you, in more ways than one. The witch of Llehden agrees with me, and I’m not just talking about the appearance of the Reapers in Irienn Square.’
