The City

by Stella Gemmell

  He thought again about Indaro and wondered if she survived.

  Constantly on alert as he walked, he found it easy to avoid the small groups of enemy soldiers he encountered. Once he lay flat on his stomach in the poor shelter of a prickly bush as a troop of Blues, cheerful in victory, marched straight past him. He slept deeply that night in the lee of a low outcrop of rock, and in the morning light he started refreshed, though his stomach complained from lack of food.

  He was starting to believe he would soon see the City walls, and wondering if he should ditch the Blue uniform, when he heard the sound of boots marching hard from the south. Suddenly, over a low rise, he saw a small band of soldiers heading straight towards him. He readied himself to prove his identity as a loyal soldier of the City if necessary.

  But it was a Blueskin platoon of seven, with an officer on horseback. As they approached he put a pleased expression on his face and walked briskly towards them. The officer was a sour-faced man, probably Fkeni, his leathery face marked by deep tribal scars, his ears notched.

  “Where have you strayed from, soldier?” the officer asked him, scowling down.

  “The 10th,” Fell grunted. After a year at Salaba he knew the enemy companies almost as well as his own. These were infantrymen and would have no knowledge of cavalry personnel. He was not sure about the officer, though.

  “I thought the 10th were lost in the flood?”

  The rider’s long dark face gave nothing away, but this was a test.

  “No, sir!” Fell frowned as if puzzled by the comment. “We lost a few horses, but the men survived. No, we were chasing the City Rats and walked into an ambush. I got hit by a sword hilt, I think, and when I came to I was alone. Good to see you. I thought for a moment you were poxy Rats.”

  “Who was your commander?”

  “Marloe.”

  “Your name, soldier?”

  “Peiter Edo, sir.”

  The officer nodded and gestured him to join the company. Fell took his place at the rear of the group, nodding to the man next to him.

  But the officer turned in his saddle to question him again. “Do you know Aldous Edo, your namesake?”

  “No sir.”

  “But he’s second-in-command of your company, man.”

  “No sir,” Fell replied stolidly, “not in my time.”

  He had no clue if his answer had satisfied. He knew the names of several officers of the 10th, which is why he’d chosen the company, but he had not heard of an Aldous Edo. The officer gazed at him for a long moment, then he turned back in his saddle and walked his horse on. Was he fooled or not? Fell had no idea.

  “Good boots?” asked the man next to him, a tall young soldier with old eyes and a bandaged neck. He was looking down at Fell’s feet.

  Fell confided in a low voice, “Ten times better than ours. Always get the best pair of boots you can. Others, they look for gold teeth. I look for boots. I can march twelve hours a day on these.”

  “Friend of mine lost both feet because of bad boots,” the other man told him. His eyes were red-rimmed and he blinked constantly.

  “Quartermaster’s in the pay of the enemy,” Fell asserted, nodding.

  The man looked at him, surprised. “You think so too?”

  “Stands to reason,” Fell said.

  The man in front, hearing their conversation, chipped in with a complaint about the fit of his helm, and Fell grinned to himself. Soldiers are the same the world over, he thought.

  “What’s this officer like?” he asked his new comrade, nodding at the man on the horse.

  The red-eyed soldier hawked and spat in the dust. “Don’t know him,” he said finally. “Not even sure he’s an officer,” he confided. “He’s just the one with the horse.”

  They were marching towards the south-east and once again Fell wondered what had become of the bulk of the City army. His troops had been at the far right flank, so when they were hit by the flood they were cut off. But the rest of the army must still be intact. He had walked north then east and now south-east, and he was starting to wonder if he had walked all the way round it.

  He was reluctant to call attention to his ignorance, but at last he asked, “What are our orders?”

  The red-eyed man looked at him curiously. “Mop up survivors,” he answered slowly, as if speaking to a child.

  Fell shook his head. “I must have been out longer than I thought,” he said, coldness creeping through his body. “Survivors from the flood?”

  “No, lackbrain,” the soldier said, grinning. “Survivors from the battle. Salaba, the greatest victory the world has ever known. Twenty thousand Rats dead in one day.”

  The stalemate at Salaba, which had endured for more than a year, had been broken, Fell learned, by the devastating flood. It was not just his company that was cut off and destroyed; the entire Maritime Army had been overwhelmed. Even some of the generals had been killed, forced, perhaps for the first time in decades, to take up the sword in defence of themselves and the City. Many had been captured, it was said, and tortured to give up the secrets of the City’s defences. Fell wondered if Randell Kerr had been compelled to fight for his life. He remembered the tall tower with the generals gulping wine on top and visualised it surrounded by enemy soldiers, on fire perhaps. He found no sympathy for them.

  He thought of Indaro again. He had not seen her body among the corpses. He hoped she was dead rather than captive. It was said the Blues would torment women soldiers before killing them, although he had never seen evidence of it.

  It was twenty years before when, the City running dangerously low on manpower after so many years of war, it had been decided to press women to fight. Fell was a young infantryman himself then and he cheerfully joined in the sneering contempt for the frightened girls sent to the front line. The generals, forced into a plan they had no faith in, acted typically. They made the girls fight but did not train them or equip them properly. So they died in their thousands, fulfilling the men’s predictions. But it was the male soldiers, many of them with wives and sisters and sweethearts at home, who found compassion in their hearts and took it on themselves to train the women, to equip them in dead men’s breastplates and helms. But an entire generation of City women had been wiped out before the generals conceded that if they were to fight they had to receive the same training and equipment as men.

  Indaro was part of the third wave of women warriors. By then the sixteen-year-old girls were treated as well—or badly—as the boys were. When Fell first met the woman, in his tent on that golden night, he knew well who she was—the daughter of a suspect politician, sister of a renegade, and a deserter herself, working with the woman Archange, traitor to the City. When she walked into his tent at midnight he had not decided what to do with her.

  She was tall and painfully thin, her cheekbones like blades stretching the skin of her face. She was dirty and clearly exhausted, yet she held herself with a grace that instantly excited him. Her dark red hair was the glory of the sunset after a storm, and her violet eyes, on a level with his, were flecked with grey under dark brows. He found himself lost for words.

  The silence lengthened, and all he could think of to say was, “I knew your father.”

  She stared at him, her eyes widening a little. He realised she thought he was challenging her with her father’s past, so he amended, “I never believed them when they said he raised a family of deserters.” A family of deserters? What was he saying? Could he be more insulting?

  Indaro’s voice was dry and distant as she stared over his head. “He knew nothing of my…absence. He has disowned me, sir.”

  It was a lie and Fell knew it. But she was not defending herself; she was defending her father.

  “My job is to win battles,” he told her, wondering as he spoke why he was explaining himself to her. “I need all the resources I can get. I’m told you are an excellent swordswoman. I cannot afford to waste you.”

  After that he kept her in his sights. He agreed to her peti
tion to have her servant with her. The request amused him. Indaro clearly found no need to fit in with her comrades. While the rest of the troops, himself included, wore old leather jerkins, once red, faded to pink or grey by the sun and rain, Indaro was always clad in bright red body armour, supplied regularly from the gods knew where. Word came back to him that she was arrogant and unpopular. Fell was not surprised.

  Then came the battle of Copper Creek when, wounded herself and armed with two swords, she had held back a platoon of enemy soldiers so her injured comrade Maccus Odarin could escape to safety. Maccus was popular, and after that Fell heard no more criticisms of Indaro.

  He found himself watching her obsessively, and after each engagement he assured himself she was still alive. He was constantly pushing her from his thoughts, yet at the most awkward moments he could smell the scent of her hair, visualise the fluid graceful line of her back as she turned away from him.

  But he had barely spoken to her again until, entrenched at Salaba, he had received orders to despatch a troop of veterans to serve with the emperor’s bodyguard. He chose to misunderstand the message. He could not afford to lose the warriors. But he had been waiting for a chance to send Indaro away. And Evan Broglanh. The situation at Salaba had deteriorated steadily over the last six months, and Fell feared the eventual outcome. Still, he was reluctant, torn between the desire to send Indaro to comparative safety and the wish to keep her close. When he made his decision it was, at least in part, because he would have an excuse to speak to her again.

  When he found her and Broglanh together at the mess hall, it seemed like a gods-given opportunity. She had volunteered instantly, as he had known she would. So did the others at the table—Doon, Broglanh, the young blond lad whose name he could never remember. He had returned to his tent satisfied, believing he was sending them to safety, not into an ambush. Yet somehow she survived it, as she always did.

  The barren land to the east of the City was formally named the Plain of Defiant Endeavour, but people called it the Treeless Plain. And it was not a plain at all, but a series of steppes, rising from the bed of the great river Kercheval to the City. It was arid and at first glance appeared lifeless, but in fact it teemed with small creatures. Lying at the lip of a small hollow, Indaro had been watching the east for hours, feeling dusty and dry as the land in front of her. No enemy soldiers had marched into sight, but battalions of rabbits had entertained her as they scurried around the unpromising scrub seeking food. She wondered how so many beasts could survive on sparse windswept scraps of grass and brushwood. Indaro was on her stomach, chin resting on folded arms, head covered with a ragged piece of cloth to guard her from the sun. The rabbits would come closer and closer to her, big eyes watchful, until one would spot her and suddenly bolt. Then scores of them would run, their white scuts bobbing, until they all suddenly stopped again and sat up on their haunches. She wondered what they were so fearful of: what predators fed on rabbits in this unwelcoming land? She glanced at the bright white sky, but there was nothing up there, wheeling and watching, ready to take a skinny coney for its young.

  The comical creatures took her mind off the ache in her stomach and the incessant, tormenting thirst. It also took her mind off the injured soldiers lying in the dip behind her. After the massacre, she and Doon had limped to the west, moving through the night until at dawn they had come across a small group of Reds who had also escaped the carnage. Two were mortally injured and had died on the first night. On the second night another died. Now they were five. She and Doon, whose wound was healing well, and Garret, who was unhurt of course. Stalker, the red-braided northlander, had a shallow wound in his side and a broken ankle but he could move on a makeshift crutch. It was Queza who was the problem. The small woman had a stomach wound, probably from a spear. It had stopped bleeding but was leaking pale fluid and it stank, and Queza was now semi-conscious, muttering feverishly. They expected her to die on the first night, but she was holding on, and Indaro could not bring herself to leave her. Queza could survive if she was brought to the City, and she could be brought to the City if relief came. So Indaro watched the east, for the enemy, while Garret watched the west for City troops.

  It was the middle of the afternoon and Indaro was close to dropping off to sleep when she heard a sound of scrambling and Stalker lay down awkwardly beside her.

  “We should try and make a move tonight,” he said. His face was grey with pain.

  Indaro knew he was right, but she said nothing.

  “That girl of yours is going to die. There’s no point us dying with her.” It was an argument he’d made before.

  “We can make a litter. Garret and I will carry her.”

  “You can scarcely carry yourself, woman. We’re all as weak as one-day pups.”

  “She’s tiny. She weighs no more than a knapsack.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Garret’s a fool for you. He’ll do anything you say.”

  With an effort, Indaro sat up and swung her knees round, ready to stand. The movement made her head spin. They had to get water soon or they would all be dead.

  “Don’t worry about us,” she told the northlander. “Try and keep up.”

  He grinned and started to shuffle on his backside back towards the others. Indaro glanced once more to the east—and saw movement. She shielded her eyes and squinted. A distinct moving dark blur.

  “Incoming,” she said quietly.

  Yantou Tesserian, the Fkeni rider, felt the newcomer’s eyes boring into his back, piercing his leather armour and tickling his backbone. He didn’t like the man. He didn’t like him and he didn’t trust him. The Tenth? He didn’t believe a word. Yantou knew this tall man with his blue eyes and arrogant walk was either a deserter or a dunghill Rat. Probably a Rat, probably an officer. But for the moment the man was walking unknowing towards the 17th Eastern, Yantou’s own company which, by the Fkeni’s reckoning, was less than a half-day’s hike to the south. The newcomer was saving them the bother of tying him up and dragging him along. Officers were always kept for interrogation, although most of them were ignorant bastards, kept in the dark by their generals, even in battle.

  In the village where Yantou was born, in the foothills of the beautiful and perfidious Mountains of the Moon, tall men were pitied. They made poor soldiers. Like high trees, they were vulnerable to the axe, ready to topple in a strong wind. Short men, brawny and strong like Yantou, were low down, ready to strike for the vital parts, the genitals and the belly. Tall soldiers waved their swords at your head and neck, the most effectively defended part of the body. And these tall trees, these high waving fronds, made easy targets.

  But they were treacherous. Their heads were so high, you never knew what they were thinking. Yantou pulled his horse to a halt and, turning in the saddle, waved his men on in front of him. The tall newcomer passed him without a glance. Yantou stood in his stirrups. He turned this way and that, scanning the dead plain. Nothing.

  Far away to his right rabbits were feeding. They were too distant from Yantou to pay him any heed, but suddenly they ran. Away to the west, their white tails flashing the alarm. They were not running from him. What were they running from? Rabbits were stupid creatures. Sometimes they would flee from a tumbling leaf. He stared hard to see a threat they might be escaping. Nothing.

  He debated with himself, then pulled his mount to the right and signalled the men to fan out. The platoon loped in the direction he indicated, spears and swords at the ready. Yantou trotted his horse beside them, unsheathing a spear as he guided the beast with his knees. Rabbits scattered on either side of the running men.

  There was a rise in the land fifty paces ahead. Forty. He saw a furtive movement beyond it and grinned, imagined fear. He held the spear aloft. A red figure rose up then darted to his right. It was a woman, fleeing. A female Rat. He turned the horse towards her. It was a foolish mistake for the dunghill to arm its women.

  He chased her. She was fast. But he was faster. He readied himself to launch his
spear, hesitated, reluctant to end the hunt. Suddenly she bowled over, rolling, out of sight beneath his horse. He dragged on the reins, hauling the beast round, then saw a moving blur at his right stirrup. She came up in a heartbeat and lanced her sword into his side. It veered off the armour, then sliced through his hip, burning. He brought the butt of the spear down at her head but she was already gone. The horse, caught by surprise, whinnied and reared as something hit him on the nose. Her sword. Yantou, disabled by the wound to his hip, hung on grimly, then felt another blow to his back. He slid off the horse, sword in hand, and landed on one knee, looking around. The woman was already racing back to her comrades, Yantou forgotten.

  He put one hand awkwardly to his back and it came back sticky with blood. It improved the grip on his sword. He followed the woman. He saw she was battling with two of his men, her sword red, coated with his lifeblood. Two others of his platoon were dead, and the tall newcomer was fighting with Alva, his best fighter, a doughty swordsman, and small. Yantou stumbled towards them to help Alva. Over a low lip of land he saw another battle, a big red-braided man and a blonde woman both defending a wounded warrior. A nest of Rats.

  His legs were weakening and he wondered how grave his wounds were. He made towards Alva, then somehow he was on his knees, staring down at the dry dust, where his blood was soaking in as fast as it could flow. He looked up. Alva was lying dead now, his head half severed. The tall man was running to aid the woman.

  Now Yantou was lying staring at the sky. It was white and bright and hurt his eyes. So he closed them and darkness gathered around him, comforting. After a long while he opened them again and saw the face of the tall man above him. His eyes were blue as the skies of Yantou’s home. They watched Yantou with a terrible compassion.