Shadowgod

by Michael Cobley

  The stable was a long, low building on the west side of the parade ground and the smithy was at its far end. The forgeman took her to her horse's stall where she saw that the reshoeing had been done to her satisfaction, and minutes later she was riding out of the barrack gates.

  The battle was now well-joined as the enemy fighters strove to reach the battlements on tall ladders or grappling ropes. From where Nerek was, she could look up and across the roofs of the artisan and college wards, across the treeless expanse of Lords Glade, to the long stretch of the south wall. Clusters of fighting men were visible all along it and reinforcements were rushing in from the guard towers. Northwest, looking past the twin hills of the Old Town, she could see a similar struggle taking place on the northern wall. Yet the defenders seemed to be holding out, using every advantage to the full…

  There was a bright flash from somewhere behind her and as she jerked round she caught sight of a large flighted creature tumbling out of the sky over the palace uttering a jagged shriek as it fell. Two of the half-dozen small figures clinging to its back were shaken loose before it dipped its snout downwards and spread its wings. Swooping low over the outer walls, it wheeled and came down out of sight behind the buildings south of the Imperial Barracks.

  It was one of Byrnak's nighthunters, she knew, sent with the purpose of landing warriors on one of the High Spire's great balconies. Only there was someone with vigilant eyes watching from the tower and ready to strike, someone that could only be Bardow. But she had seen the other figures on the creature's back and knew that any warriors nearby could never stand against such peril. She had been on her way to the Imperial Barracks anyway, but now here was the kind of unforseen peril that she was well-suited to confronting. Wheeling her horse, she urged it into a spirited gallop up towards the palace.

  * * *

  Bardow felt at once exhilarated and uneasy in the moments following his attack on the nighthunter. When the wall assaults began, he had prepared in his mind a few Lesser Power thought-cantos in case the enemy looked like breaking through, among them Sunlance. Usually, unleashing such a spell would have cost him so dearly as to leave him insensible for hours yet here he was, leaning on the balcony and feeling only a little dizzy.

  The Crystal Eye, he thought. Being attuned to it has advantages – I wonder what the disadvantages are…

  “Archmage! - are you wounded?” said the captain of the Protector knights set to guard the wide, many-windowed chamber that Bardow had chosen as his vantage point.

  “I am well,” he said, waving the man away. “But the creature has come down in a street near the Imperial Barracks. Despatch messengers to the garrison commanders of the palace and the barracks, and send a couple of your own men along the south-facing aggors to observe for me…”

  The knight-captain nodded and turned away to issue orders. Bardow breathed in deep as vitality flowed through him. Indeed, the better he felt the more worries seemed to take root at the back of his mind, but what was the point of such worries when Byrnak's army was closing on them like the jaws of a savage beast? Wrapping his cloak tighter, he turned to look back inside the large chamber. Seeing one of the senior stairsmen over by the door, he beckoned him over.

  “Good ser,” he began. “Inform the High Steward that I must have as many attendants out on the spire's balconies as possible – he can use potboys from the kitchen if necessary, but I have to have the skies around the spire watched.”

  “I'll see it done immediately, my lord,” the stairsman said and dashed out of the room.

  Then Bardow frowned as the Crystal Eye sent a quiver of warning through his thoughts. He ducked back out onto the balcony and gazed down, letting the Eye guide his vision and enlarge the details far below without the need for a though-canto. The sweeping, blurring view came to rest on an armoured woman riding on horseback up from Ironhall barracks and kept pace with her past obscuring buildings as she headed towards the area where the nighthunter landed.

  It was Nerek. She must have seen it come down and was intent on investigating. The sight filled Bardow with anxiety and irritation. She should know better than to put herself in that kind of danger, when she should be conserving her energies…

  Bardow called the knight-captain out onto the balcony and explained the situation. “Thus I need you to send another of your men down to find her and tell her that I wish her to return here with him. That it is my command.”

  “It shall be done, my lord,” the captain said and hurried off.

  Alone once more, Bardow gazed out at the panoply of Byrnak's army, the dark swathes through the snow that marked the marching courses of warriors in their thousands. But the drums were maintaining their same regular beat – if the enemy did gain a foothold, the beat of the drums nearby would double. For the moment, Yasgur's men were managing to hold them off and Bardow's attention was drawn to the Mogaun Host, now emerging from the mist-grey low hills north of the city. Yasgur had told the Archmage of his meeting at sea with Welgarak and Gordag, and what had been agreed there, but in the light of Byrnak's swift mustering of his forces, what else could the Mogaun leaders do but throw in their lot with the Shadowkings once more? An attack on the rear of Byrnak's northern formations might help the city for a while but would invite terrible reprisals.

  Besides that, another more unsettling element was about to enter the battlefield, a huge, horse-drawn war-wagon which was slowly moving closer to Byrnak's westerly flank. Aided by the Crystal Eye, Bardow could make out that it was a massively built vehicle rolling along on eight great wheels. There seemed to be some kind of long, arm beneath a wide draping of stitched skins and hides, and a strong feeling that the Wellsource was part of its construction and purpose…

  Was it a ram meant for bludgeoning through fortifications, but what kind of ram would it have to be to breach Besh-Darok's mighty wall? Or could it be a catapult with a fearsome throwing capacity and range enough to reach anywhere in the city?

  Suddenly, events on the northern battlements caught his eye, the defenders cheering and waving flags as the enemy retreated with its wounded and its remaining ladders. Bardow smiled bleakly, knowing that this was only the first of many assaults and certainly the least. The main body of Byrnak's vast horde still waited, facing the west wall with that mysterious war-wagon crawling ever nearer. He called over an attendant and told him to seek out Alael in one of the lower level libraries and ask her to join him here. Then he looked back out at the ominous wain, studying its unfaltering progress.

  * * *

  Like all of Byrnak's warriors, he wore a shaped, leather mask, but his was larger and more elaborate with a ribbed ruff which curved up and over the back of his head then flared out with a trailing edge of feathery tails. The leather was a rich, dark brown and had a dull polished gleam to it, much like the full chest corselet that he wore. He had been waiting just inside the entrance to the Imperial Barracks when Nerek arrived, standing with a red-edged black cloak draped over his shoulders and a bared longsword held before him, its blade dripping blood on the broad flagstones.

  Now, cloak discarded, he circled as slowly as Nerek, watching her every move as she watched his. She had already glimpsed the hacked and lifeless bodies scattered along the corridor beyond the entrance hall and knew that this one's companions were almost certainly in the High Spire by now. The thought of Bardow or Alael in danger sent a ripple of anger through her.

  Then the masked warrior attacked with a whirling barrage of blows that struck sparks from Nerek's own sword and forced her back. Snarling, she unleashed a stream of Sourcefire, formed it into a long gauntlet around her left hand with which she grabbed the man's longsword high along the blade. Wrenching it out of his grasp, she swung it swiftly and took his head from his shoulders. As the corpse fell twitching to the ground, spilling dark ichor across and between the flagstones, a familiar mocking voice spoke in her thoughts:

  And still you deny and defy me, dearest Nerek, said Byrnak. For as long as the Wellsource flows in
your flesh, part of you will always belong to me. I would offer you shelter and redemption again, except that I know you have made your choice. Such glorious futility! But worry not, for soon I shall bring it to an end…

  She thrust the poisonous voice from her mind and strove to block Byrnak's presence altogether. Then she threw the longsword aside with a sharp clatter, crossed the entrance hall and stood on the threshold of the double doors to the barrack concourse. The dead bodies of some dozen knights were lying all around the doorway, a carnage of severed limbs and exposed innards. A few had deep wounds that smouldered, proving the presence of at least one Wellsource adept up ahead.

  A deep bestial shriek from outside made her look round. Through one of the hall's open windows she saw that snow was falling again, but more important was the dark hulking shape of a nighthunter that was now perched on the peaked roof of a building next to the barracks. It made any notion of leaving by this route somewhat risky.

  For Nerek, however, the only way was in.

  * * *

  Yasgur's heart leaped when the grey veils of snowfall swept down from the north and across the city. He had teams prepared and waiting at the seaward towers of the wall, both north and south, and now disguised with masks and uniforms taken from the enemy dead. His original task for them had been to climb down and go forth to wreak general havoc and destruction, but now another target had come to the fore.

  The Lord Regent and his staff were currently ensconced in a round, covered tower that was part of a spur wall jutting inwards from the Gallaro Gate fortification. From here he had an excellent view of both northern and western walls, as well as all the enemy forces ranged against them. It was the long, low war machine slowly trundling its way towards the city that had occupied his thoughts increasingly for the last half hour. The thing was surrounded by hundreds of guarding swordsmen so it would be pointless to send his disguised warriors against them. No, instead they would capture one of the enemy's catapults, which were far heavier than those within the city, and use it against that huge wagon.

  The most likely catapult was the one still stationed beyond the smuggler's ridge. It was the most isolated one, but there were still risks aplenty from the cavalry and foot formations that were in direct line of sight of it. Hopefully, the weather would conceal his men as they went about their task.

  Yasgur had his flag-officer send the order and as the man clambered up into the tower's cupola, he shivered and poured himself a beaker of hot wine from a bronze kettle sitting on the hot bricks of a brazier. More runners brought messages and reports as he sipped and he replied with more commands. The Shadowking army seemed to have paused, perhaps for a period of realignment.

  “My lord,” said a woman's voice behind him. “I have urgent news.”

  Steeling himself, he turned to meet the cool, dark gaze of the female mage who called herself the Nightrook. She was a tall, slender woman in a long, azure coat and her pale, precise and unsmiling features gave away nothing but a lofty composure. Yasgur still felt nervous in the presence of sorcerous abilities but forced himself to be courteous.

  “Who is it from, lady?” he said.

  “Your seer, Atroc. He speaks through my colleague, Zanser, and wishes to tell you that three ships, each bearing 150 troops, are now docking at the Long Quay.”

  “Good!” Yasgur suddenly felt the dangerous glimmer of hope. “Tell Atroc that I want them marched quickly up to the old Lords Glade where they will wait for my next orders. And he is to have this passed on through the duty officer at the quay.”

  “He understands your commands, my lord, and assure you that –”

  “Wait,” he said, frowning. There was cheering and whoops coming from the north wall, men leaning on the battlements and pointing out. Yasgur stared north through the shifting greyness of snow and began to make out movements among the enemy ranks. Then he saw a wedge of horsemen sweep in to attack them from the shoreward flank, and understood.

  The Mogaun Host had moved against Byrnak's unprotected and unsuspecting troops! Whatever the Shadowking's response, right now his forces were being torn apart.

  * * *

  Welgarak felt full of a burning exhilaration as he led the Mogaun charge on into the disorganised rabble of Byrnak's soldiers. On a hillside back the way they had come, the Host's second wave was hacking that leaderless mob of horsemen to pieces while Welgarak aimed to take his own riders on a broad sweep through the nearer block of infantry.

  Like a honed edge, the Mogaun horsemen pushed on relentlessly. Welgarak's axe rose and fell in a bloody arc, every blow an act of revenge for the lies and foulness inflicted upon the Mogaun tribes by the Shadowkings. All around him other chiefs and warriors fought with the same grim resolve, fully aware that any of those masked soldiers might once have been proud members of their own clans.

  Through the dissolving ranks of black masks, the bloodied horsemen rode. To those troops on the ground, caught in the jostling, shrieking, gory chaos, the advancing riders were like a wave of death against which none could stand. Suddenly, the breaking lines turned into a rout but Welgarak ignored the fleeing men, instead signalling with a raised totem of fur and ribbons and a drawn-out call that took his hurtling riders in a tight wheel towards the next mass of infantry.

  From a lifetime of combat on foot and in the saddle, Welgarak knew that timing was everything. The commander of the other infantry formation had seen what happened and had swiftly rearranged his lines to meet the new threat with spearmen ranked along the front. Unfortunately his rear and flanks were now vulnerable and as Welgarak slowed his own charge, Gordag came racing up from a snow-hidden gully to the north, at the head of a thousand riders which slammed into the enemy's left flank. A second wedge numbering 500 came thundering out of a dark, icy wood to the west and struck them in the rear.

  Yet still they held, that compact array of infantry, until a bolt from one of Welgarak's crossbowmen found the commander amid his guards, punched through the heavy leather mask just above his ear, through the skull and into his brain. Welgarak could see the spears of the front line waver as word of their commander's death spread panic and he knew that it was time. With a whispered prayer to the ancient storm gods of the Mogaun, he raised his totem and called the charge. When the infantry saw that line of horsemen approaching at the gallop, with groups of Mogaun swordsmen rushing in as well, the lines broke. A few stood and fought in stubborn knots but most fled away into the snowfields west of the city.

  Still on horseback, Welgarak and Gordag met on a hillock beyond the carnage. Both bore wounds but to Welgarak it seemed that Gordag was worse off. Blood from a gash on his jowly cheek had matted the fur collar of his heavy jerkin.

  “You let those beetles get too close with their pig-stickers,” he said, irritation masking his concern.

  “Ach! - looks worse than it is,” Gordag said. “But what about you? - where did you earn that scratch?”

  Welgarak followed his pointing finger down to his right leg where the leather greave had been torn away and a half-clotted gouge in his calf wept a long red smear. Surprised, he began to feel it through the numb cold that was sinking into his flesh.

  “Seems like we both have to see the binder, brother,” he said. “Before our former master makes his move.”

  “Don't know as we have time f'r it.”

  Hearing the grim note in Gordag's voice he quickly looked up and southwards. It was snowing more heavily now and the far side of the city and the countryside beyond were frost pale and blurred. Nearer, however, were those units of the Shadowking's army which were the most immediate threat to the Mogaun, yet there was no sign of them heading this way.

  “You'll see 'em in a moment,” said Gordag.

  But he heard them first, harsh rasping cries carried by a swirl in the winds overhead. It was a sound that took him back to the siege of Rauthaz over a year ago when the Acolytes of Twilight had released a swarm of eaterbeasts into the city's streets. Their cries were the sound of a bottomless
hunger for blood and they struck fear into his heart, but he crushed it with his anger and need for revenge.

  “We cannot fight them here,” he said.

  “Agreed,” said Gordag.

  “We shall have to ride swiftly and find a place….”

  So saying, they rode back, bellowing orders to their men to mount up and ride north for their lives.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dire storms woven of stars and blood,

  Rage forth from the ghastly dark,

  To tear at our walls,

  And test our valour.

  —Keldon Ghant, Orosiada: A Masque, Act1, Sc 2.

  Atroc was labouring his way up the recessed stairs on the southern wall, glancing out over Lord's Glade, when he heard a deep, reverberating thud followed a moment later by a shudder that passed through the solid stone of the wall itself. Instantly, he knew what had happened and fear put vigour into his legs as he ran up the rest of the stairs. He had been on his way to find one of Bardow's mages, so that he could inform Yasgur that the three hundred Cabringan swords were now in Lord's Glade awaiting his command. Now, he also needed to know what was happening.

  * * *

  Bardow was out on his balcony, shivering despite his heavy cloak, closely watching the great wagon's slow approach to a point on the wall along from the Shield Gate and closest to the Imperial Palace. Even as it drew near he could feel the Wellsource energies building within it yet he still knew nothing of its construction due to the enormous canvas sheet which lay draped across most of its length.

  Fifty yards away it halted and as the horses were unharnessed, a long boom was attached to the rear. Two dozen heavily-armoured and helmed troops quickly took their places, lifted the boom and began pushing and forcing the wagon into motion again. Only when it was nearly at the wall itself and attracting a barrage of rocks and arrows did a few of its toiling attendants dash forward and tug lashing free and drag the snow-caked sheet away. Bardow saw a long wooden arm as thick as a man and as long as three draught horses put nose to tail. It was hinged at the front, its axle protected by a bronze-banded wooden carapace which extended the wagon's full length. Affixed to the end of the arm was a strange element, a squat stone cylinder with a six-foot iron spike jutting from its centre. As a green nimbus began to flicker and leap around the puzzling war machine, it moved still closer until obscured by the wall despite the height of his balcony.