The Tower of Living and Dying

by Anna Smith Spark

  A couple of days to recover, yes, well, possibly maybe a couple of days longer than he’d originally intended (risky, Yanis Stansel kept muttering, to stay in one place for so long; take it up with Alleen, it’s entirely his fault, he gave it to me, Marith muttered weakly back), then on again. They took two more towns in quick succession, marching along the banks of the river Laxartes that flowed down to meet the Haliakmon very near to the ruins of Ethalden itself. Three minor engagements with Illyian forces, two of which they won. They got further in Illyr than his grandfather. Further than any Altrersyr army had ever reached. The enemy fell back before them. The soldiers were in good cheer.

  Then a body of Kiana’s horse on scouting manoeuvres were cut up badly, the two survivors reporting mounted banefire archers, magery, a terrible panicking freezing sense of fear. Another scouting party was cut to ribbons behind them: one survivor, screaming with his face hanging off his skull. Behind them. Osen had the man killed, and the three soldiers who’d found him, and the four men who’d held him down when they tried to get him to say anything that made recognizable sense. The few scouts who did make it back reported the Illyians massing to the north. Difficult, somehow, to get any firm estimate of how many or exactly where. But smoke could be seen on the horizon. Dark thick columns of it, like fields burning, at night what must be fires off in the northern hills.

  The next few days it rained heavily, hard heavy cold grey rain. Visibility was poor and they trudged along cautiously, sliding on muddy grass that sucked at their feet. Not as bad as the marshes in the Wastes had been, not even as bad as it often got on Sel or Third in winter in the hills, but somehow it felt worse. The rain sapped all the energy from the legs, got inside one’s armour rubbing the skin raw. The Jaxertane rose, flooded its banks, looked to be becoming dangerous to cross. Marith pulled the columns under Yanis Stansel back across to his side of the river, keeping the troops close together in one long block. Safer, but the increased numbers slowed them, the ground was churned to mud up to men’s knees, the carts floundered until a good number had to be left. The horses hated it, staggered along mired and snorting, a good number of them hurt their legs in the mud and had to be left as well.

  All the stories about the endless Altrersyr failures. Soldiers who had recently been toasting Amrath returned on the feast of Amrath’s birth day muttered lines from the Death of Hilanis and the Death of Nevethlyn, made signs against evil with their fingers when they thought their commanding officers weren’t around. Thalia prayed at night to her cursed god.

  The next day the sun came out. Marith had them go fast to press on. The valley of the Jaxertane was beginning to narrow, the hills rising nearer and higher and steeper. The valley now almost a gorge through the hills. He hadn’t noticed yesterday, in the rain. They could have turned off up onto higher ground, where it was drier, where they wouldn’t have been so pressed in. But they hadn’t. He somehow hadn’t noticed. Turning the long columns now would be difficult. Nasis Jaeartes had a column of light armed infantry up in the hills, flanking them on the left, Kiana Sabryya still had a troop of light horse across the river to their right. The maps showed the valley opening out onto a plain only a few hours at most ahead of them, before the land rose again towards the sea. The first columns could be there by evening easily, the rest by dawn at the worst. The benefit of the hills around them was that the enemy could not come down on them in any numbers. And of course he had the dragon. This was his rightful kingdom. The sun was shining. Things were just about fine.

  He thought afterwards that his head had still been numbed perhaps by the after-effects of hatha, that the thing he should have seen that was so obvious did not occur to him until too late.

  The valley did indeed widen out suddenly into a smooth plain, with the river bending away sharply to the west. More hills rose in the distance before them, high enough that their tops were shrouded in cloud. The evening sun flashed on the river, and on the armour of the men assembled in the plain. A thousand campfires like the stars of heaven, as the poets rightly said. Beautiful and bright and flickering and cruel as staring eyes.

  The Illyians held the plain in front of him. Behind him was the narrow valley, churned to mud, filled with his soldiers marching up.

  Silver lights danced in the sky overhead. The King’s Star was hidden by clouds.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  “Burn them.”

  The dragon bowed its head to Marith. Smoke curled from its mouth. Its eyes like mage glass. Cherry blossom. The sunlight dancing on rough water. Luminous sea creatures sliding through Carin’s hands.

  Never look into a dragon’s eyes. Never. Look into a dragon’s eyes and you lose your mind. It hurts. Hurts you. Marith stared back at it. The dragon blinked and turned its head away.

  “Burn them, destroy them, tear them apart.”

  The dragon hissed. Or laughed. Or wept. Lust shimmering off it. Oh yes, dragons did feel desire, and love, and want, and need.

  “Sekne, Ansikanderakesis.” Yes, My Lord. Its soft green voice like the smell of summer trees.

  Marith watched as it wheeled up into the sky. The setting sun caught it, lit it, it blazed red as the King’s Star. It dived down like a thunderbolt just as the sun disappeared behind the western hills. He heard the howl of the fire from its mouth.

  A silver light shot up from the Illyian camp to meet it. Mage fire, he thought, nothing of significance. Then the light reached it, enveloped it, the dragon struggling in a mesh of silver, bathed and covered in beams of light. Its fire choked out, he saw its wings beat frantically, the head and tail twist and writhe. It screamed.

  Shadows tore from the sky. Rushed up to defend the dragon. The silver light took them. Like a mist rising from a river on a winter morning, or standing on a hilltop as the clouds came down.

  The two armies watched mesmerized. Gods wrestling in the sky. A firebird of gold and silver rose up to the battle. Grappled with the shadows. A hawk catching geese on the wing, killing in the air. Gold feathers and fragments of shadow tumbling down. Crashing onto the Illyian army beneath but they did not move, stood staring, died staring where they stood. The night full of wonders. No moon, no stars, only gold and silver magic and the muffled jets of dragon fire.

  Fighting. Fighting. A pageant of wonders. Gods dying ruined. Light and death and pain dying in the sky. Drifts of gold and silver. The dark formlessness of the shadows, faceless teeth and claws. Frantic wing beats, the dragon’s body writhing. Muffled explosions of dragon fire. The most beautiful thing a man had ever seen. And silent. Slow and silent. So far away. Sparks from a bonfire. Fish moving beneath the skin of water. Nothing real.

  A dragon can’t die, thought Marith. A dragon is a marvel. An impossibility. Beyond death. A dragon can’t die.

  The dragon ripped free of its bindings. Screamed. Tore frantically across the sky. Wounds running the length of its body. It showered blood down on the Illyian army. Flew unsteadily, one wing ragged. Fire gushing out of its mouth and its belly. Screamed. Screamed. Screamed.

  Wounded. Bleeding.

  Dying.

  You’ve killed a dragon, Marith. Dragon killer, you are. Of course they can die. Just mortal things. Life’s an illusion. Everything dies. Even that, in the end. Even beauty. Everything.

  And it was gone. A distant crash of fire from the hills far in the west.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  A very long silence. The whole world seemed to hold its breath, trying to understand what had happened. Marith stared dazedly at the empty sky.

  The sun was rising. It bathed the plain soft pale warm pink. All the birds of Illyr began to sing.

  Osen rode up beside him.

  “What … What do you want us to do? Marith?”

  Marith stirred himself. Do. What do we do? Yes. Do.

  “Marith? My Lord King?”

  Do. What do we do. He rubbed his eyes painfully. Hatha itch. Worse than it had been for … oh, days now. The severity of it suggested everything that had just hap
pened couldn’t have been a particularly horrible hatha dream.

  “Marith! The men are standing exhausted and starving having just watched the enemy camped immediately in front of them destroy a dragon. They’ve been standing all night after marching all day. They haven’t had anything to eat. We need at least to make camp.”

  Do. What. Do. We. Do.

  “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m the king. You should be kneeling at my feet.”

  Osen rubbed his own eyes. “Gods, Marith! Stop it. I know you’re the bloody king. Right now I’m trying to keep it that way.”

  Looked bleakly at Osen. “Are you? Why?”

  “For gods’ sakes, Marith! Just tell me what you want me to do?”

  “Do …? Make camp, I suppose.” He looked across the plains at the Illyian army camped before them. A sea of horses and men and gods. Looked behind him, at the narrow river valley and the mud and the steep close hills. “We can hardly pull back. Make camp, get a hot meal organized, prepare to meet them.” He rubbed his eyes again. Hatha. Ah, gods, half his kingdom for a few vials of hatha or a barrel of firewine. “Get my tent put up. See that Thalia is comfortable. Leave me alone for a while. Keep Thalia away from me for a while as well.” I can’t face seeing her, he thought.

  Osen sighed. Rubbed at his eyes. Marith heard him shouting orders as he walked off.

  Osen and Yanis between them got the army dug in at the mouth of the valley, the bulk of the troops on the flat with a ditch and palisade before them, Maen Bemann and Kiana Sabryya holding the heights to the east and west. They must not, must not be caught with the Illyians getting round outflanking them cutting them off in the hills overlooking the camp. Though scouts reported enemy horse in the hills a day or so behind them. Outflanking them. Cutting them off. In the hills overlooking the camp.

  Smoke rose all day from the hills to the west where the dragon had gone; that evening they could see that the peak of one of the hills was burning. The pain of its dying gnawed in Marith’s chest. Then in the night it rained again heavily, and the fire was put out.

  The two armies sat facing each other. The Illyians manoeuvred in the plain, raced their horses, but did not approach.

  Two days. Sitting staring at the Illyian army. It rained continually. The river broke its banks. The valley behind them was a marsh. A raid on the horse lines at night cost them twenty good horses. The gods alone knew how you killed twenty horses, silently, in the pouring rain, in the pitch black.

  Gods, the soldiers muttered. Gods and magics. We’re all going to die.

  “I know where this place is, you know,” said Osen helpfully to Marith.

  “Dark its mountains,

  The wide green field where horses run.

  The river is green and silver.

  There all the world’s ruin came.

  “This is the Field of Shame, where the traitors first raised their standard to betray Amrath. ‘They raised their voice loud to the heavens, the treacherous ones, the enemies of Amrath the Great. “No more war! No more bloodshed! We will raise our children and live in peace!”’ That’s the plain ahead of us. It happened here.”

  “Yes.”

  “My tutor made me sweat over that section of the Treachery of Illyr for bloody weeks. Still have it off by heart. It’s this place, I’m telling you. The Field of Shame.”

  “I said yes. I know.”

  Osen stopped. “You know?”

  “Of course I know. I’ve known since we got here. Since we left the Wastes, even, I think. It had to be here.” Sighed. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Osen sighed too. Rubbed his eyes. “Gods. I wish you’d left us any of that hatha. Or the firewine. Or someone could just kick me hard in the head until I pass out. What effect does banefire have if you drink it, do you think? I’m not exactly the only one here who’ll have read the Treachery of Illyr, Marith. Word will get round. An army stood here and swore it would destroy Amrath and all who followed Him. We’re cursed and doomed. That’s what they’ll say.”

  “That’s what they’re already saying.” Marith looked over at the Illyian campfires. “That’s what they’ve been saying about me for years, that I’m cursed and doomed. Putting money on it. You put money on it, in point of fact, I think.” He turned back to Osen. “Banefire tastes absolutely disgusting and has absolutely no discernible effects whatsoever aside from taking the skin off the inside of your mouth and leaving you pissing blood for the best part of a week. Call the lords to my tent. It’s time we ended this. Killed them. I’m fed up with sitting here in the rain.”

  They met in the king’s tent an hour later. Thalia sat in the corner, damp and miserable, suffering the beginnings of a cold. She felt sick, didn’t want to eat. On top of everything else …

  If she is harmed, Marith thought, if she is harmed, I’ll kill every man, woman and child in Illyr, and every man, woman and child who marches in my army, and curse every man, woman and child left behind on the White Isles to rot and sterility and a long slow painful lonely death. Every child conceived on the Whites for a hundred years will die before it’s born. The crops will wither in the fields. The woods will crumble to ashes. The clear sweet streams will run black. I swear.

  Had sworn it once already, gazing up at her in fuddled adoration on the night of Amrath’s birth day, after they had been enthroned as King and Queen of Illyr and All Irlast. Her eyes had paled and widened; she had run her fingers through his hair, stroked his face. Like he was a pretty child giving her a foolish gift. Then she’d laughed. “I’d best not come to any harm then, had I?” she’d said.

  Osen coughed. Maen Bemann was sitting down shaking rainwater from his cloak. The war council was assembled. Ten wet tired faces looking at their king to guide them. Yes. Down to business. Marith poured himself a drink and looked back. So here we all are back here again, sitting in a tent in the pissing rain wondering what the fuck to do next. Who’s got enough courage this time to start things off?

  Silence.

  Come on then. Somebody. King Ruin led you to the Field of Shame and sat you down opposite the entire Illyian army. Somebody worth his position here needs to say something about that.

  “We’ve been here three days now,” said Nasis Jaeartes at last. “Nothing’s happening. We could be sitting here for months.”

  “They’ve got that … that thing,” said Lord Nymen. “The dragon killer.”

  Silence. Nobody wanted to think about it, whatever it was. Ignore it. Hope it goes away. Like a lump on a man’s private parts. Lord Nymen swallowed. “If we attack, we won’t … That is … I …” Lord Nymen took a very deep breath. “I can’t see how we can hope to destroy them. Not with that thing. Sitting here is about the only thing we can do.”

  “If we sit here long enough,” said Maen Bemann, “the summer’ll be over and we’ll all freeze to fucking death.”

  “Don’t need to wait for summer to be over,” said Yanis Stansel. “Not exactly a lot to eat around here.”

  “We can eat the horses,” muttered Osen. “The men, if they try to run away.”

  “If we’d moved more quickly,” said Yanis, “we could have been clear of the hills. Pushing the Illyians in their heartlands. Raiding villages where there’s supplies and horses. Not stuck here in the most ill-fated cursed place in all Irlast. If we’d moved quickly. Not stayed so long in one place.”

  Marith said irritably, “You held us up as well, Yanis, you and the damn baggage, taking ages to catch up after we crossed the Nimenest.”

  Osen’s hand was on his sword hilt. He looked questioningly at Marith. You want me to do it now? his eyes said. Marith thought: oh, I’m tempted. Tempers all fraying, Yanis like a stone in his shoe. Stupid self-righteous cautious fool. But no. He tried as inconspicuously as possible to shake his head. This is, in fact, entirely your fault, Osen, he thought. Two days at least we lost thanks to you.

  “They would have caught us anyway,” said Maen Bemann. The others looked at him. Shocked. Horrified. The scandal of a man spe
aking the truth to his king.

  Maen Bemann said, “They’ve killed every Altrersyr army that ever came here. We’re no different. This is the Field of Shame. It destroyed Amrath. It’ll destroy us. Cursed and doomed, we are. Like every Altrersyr army in this treacherous god-cursed god-forsaking place.”

  Osen slammed his fist into the table. “This is the Army of Amrath! The army of King Ruin! The army of death! This is the Field of Shame where Amrath was betrayed? So we will avenge Amrath! Punish this country and its people! Wash the field clean with Illyian blood! We are the army of King Ruin! We will kill them all!”

  Silence. A cup rolled off the table, knocked over by Osen’s hand. The drip of wine on the floor of the tent.

  “Oh, he’s King Ruin, all right,” muttered Maen. “King of dust and death.”

  Silence. White terrified faces. A little noise like a laugh in Thalia’s throat. The drip of wine on the floor of the tent.

  Osen got up and walked over and stuck his sword into Maen’s neck. Maen fell over and died. Osen sat back down again, wiping his sword on his cloak.

  Marith got to his feet. “You are the army of King Ruin. You will kill them all. We attack at first light tomorrow. I will give you your battle orders tonight. You are dismissed.”

  They filed out, shaking. Thalia went with them, her body hunched. Marith sat down to review his battle plans.

  Brief and uncomplicated. Took him all of ten heartbeats to review. Kill them all. Reclaim his kingdom.