by David Hair
He propelled Vidar towards the gate, snapping, ‘Get to Zar and Varahana and protect them!’
The Norgan bearskin hunched over, snarled and leaped through the portal. As he did, the troopship veered towards the far side of the bay – but the frigate swung into the near shore and ran out its bombards with chilling efficiency.
8
Bombards and balls
The taste of the redleaf spread through Moss Trimble’s body in gentle waves of stimulation, sharpening his focus as he watched the shoreline grow. Like most of the crew, Trimble was Pelarian and he’d as soon as not serve these damned Bolgravs, but the empire ruled now and it was throttling the life from his country. Everything of value was shipped east, leaving the natives to live hand to mouth. Any job was worth it, even one serving the Deo-be-damned Imperial Navy.
Trimble had been a signaller for three years, but thanks to his chief vices, grog and redheaded streetwalkers, he’d accumulated barely more than a few argents. That was going to change, he’d resolved. Two more years until I can go home and I want be rich.
So he eyed Toran Zorne suspiciously. You better get us back safe, you bastard, he thought, though he doubted the Ramkiseri gave a shit about anything but his kragging empire. That’s prob’ly why the damned Bolgravs always win.
As if conscious of his regard, Zorne turned to him. ‘Trimble, yes?’
At least he speaks Magnian, Trimble reflected. Most Bolgravs can’t be arsed. ‘Aye, sir.’
‘Tell the captain to take us as close to shore as possible and to prepare the bombards. And signal to the troopship to land the men on the western side of the bay.’ He extended an arm. ‘See, there are also people there, with wagons and horses. We have found our quarry.’
Trimble saluted, ran up his signals, then peered towards the eastern shore, where a cluster of people, horses and gear were gathered on the beach beside some kind of triangular wooden edifice. Then he stared at the distant but more numerous group to the west. When he returned his gaze to the eastern one, a spark of red hair caught his eye, streaming in the wind like a banner, and he felt that familiar surge of predatory emotion that redheads always engendered in him.
A nice, tasty Ferrean bitch . . . that would make this all worthwhile . . .
No doubt these mad fugitives had seen them by now – them, and the Bolgravian flag, the Blessed Orb, flapping in the freshening breeze. He could picture the panic.
Dumb bastards, he thought. You’re all going to die.
‘Master Trimble?’ Zorne reminded him tersely.
‘A Ferrean redhead,’ he growled, gesturing towards the shore. ‘Likes me a redhead.’
Then he headed along the deck to deliver Zorne’s message, hoping the redhead would survive long enough for him to reach her.
*
Zarelda was first to see the two ships as they rounded the headlands. After ten years of living in fear, she knew instantly what the Blessed Orb meant: run.
But half the horses were still across the bay, and most of the older men, and the women and children were spread across a mile of coast. And even to her untrained eye, neither shoreline looked defensible.
‘Vidar,’ she called urgently, ‘what do we do?’
The Norgan had come across moments before, snarling and spitting in fury. Around them, people were crying out in alarm and searching for their families. One man tried to run back through the portal, but Jesco and Banno smashed him to the ground an instant before a horseman came through, his beast rearing and bellowing.
‘Kragga,’ Jesco screamed in the man’s face, ‘are you trying to kill us all?’
‘You can’t go back through, it’s a one-way gate, you idiot!’ Zarelda shouted. She threw a frightened look at the far shore where her father was. I have to keep this gate open, no matter what, she realised. It’s the only thing I can do to help him.
She threw a look at Banno for strength, and anchored by his anxious but composed features, told herself, I can do this. She gripped the wooden support again and felt Adefar inside her, pouring energy in waves. There was a sudden surge from the gate as a knot of women and children came stumbling through, one after the other, and hope waged war with fear.
‘Get ready to move,’ Banno was shouting. ‘Get those wagons hooked up!’
If we all get across, we can flee inland where the ships can’t follow.
But there was a great boom! as the bombards spat and smoke enveloped the leading Bolgravian ship as it closed in on the far shore. A few moments later, she saw explosions on the beach where her father was standing next to the Westgate.
The next few women and children came through her gate screaming, while the second ship sailed right on towards their beach, its decks filled up with men waving weapons at them.
*
Kemara Solus watched the men push Beca and her cart through Vyre’s portal with trepidation. ‘Knowing my luck, if anything does go wrong, it’ll happen to me,’ she muttered, but the torches kept waving across the bay, signalling success, so she had to assume all was fine.
She’d been intending to take the cliff and river crossing herself, rather than trust Vyre’s sorcery; although she’d helped power up the Westgate, she felt horribly uncomfortable around the praxis – even a few seconds inside the spirit realm felt too dangerous for her. She’d removed the mask from its hidey-hole in the cart for just that reason, scared of what might befall it in the nebulum. It was tied up inside her skirts right now, a guilty presence.
But when the imperial ships appeared, her fear went visceral, screwing up her insides and taking her back to that awful, blank room, the glowing irons and that sadistic beast of an Invigilator . . .
Fighting the terror, she strode back through the panicking knot of women and children massed before the gate and bellowed, ‘Move! Get yourself through – you’ll be safe on the other side—’
For an extra few minutes, maybe.
She caught sight of Raythe Vyre, his face pale and drawn, one hand on the frame of the portal and the other conjuring frantically. ‘Go,’ he was roaring, ‘go—’
She joined him, still screeching encouragement at the travellers waiting take the plunge, for many were as frightened by the portal limned in crimson flames and that uncanny opaque film that swallowed people as they were the Bolgravian ships. Some two dozen were still dithering, the infants were screaming in terror as they watched the gate eat people up . . .
‘Move—’ she and Raythe shouted simultaneously, ‘go—!’
Then she saw flashes from the side of the frigate standing just beyond the breakers.
‘Get down!’ she shrieked as the air boomed and smoke billowed, but she didn’t follow her own advice, instead clutching the support as some threw themselves through the gate while others dropped to the earth. She found herself beside Raythe, staring in horror as three bombard balls ploughed into the beach in a spray of pebbles just a dozen yards from where they stood, while others flashed past and buried themselves the hillside. One mowed down a mule, splattering blood over the shingle and tussock.
Raythe spun and roared, ‘Cognatus – aqua morai!’ and a rogue wave swept up the beach and drowned the three balls in spume. One still exploded, but the water absorbed the force in a burst of salty spray. An instant later, the balls that had struck the hillside exploded, sending metal whining about them, and someone bellowed in agony.
Then everyone tried to pile through the portal at once, one terror outweighed by another.
Raythe shouted, ‘One at a time – don’t overload the gate—’ while hauling people aside, trying to regulate the flow. Kemara held back one man until his wife had gone through, then propelled him forward.
Another explosion detonated nearby, sending shrapnel whistling past her face. Then Raythe shuddered, his face contorting as a blossom of blood soaked his right side. Oh krag, she thought, stumbling towards him. His eyes glazed over, he swayed and almost fell. ‘Raythe!’
‘Kemara,’ he croaked, ‘need . . . help—’
She pressed her hand to his side to try and staunch the bleeding. ‘Come on—’ she began, trying to pull him through his own portal.
But Raythe remained rooted to the earth, solid as a tree-trunk, and his free hand closed on her throat, his desperate eyes boring into hers. Then something like a knife plunged through her brain and his voice, his heartbeat, his everything, thundered through her in a forced rapport that swept her up in a dizzying rush.
‘HELP ME,’ his mind boomed, rattling her skull as he reached inside her, grasping the spark she’d been trying to extinguish for ten years. His fist closed around it and set it alight, conjuring with energy that flowed as if he were sucking the marrow from her bones.
Then the Aldar mask pressed against her thighs whispered, Let me in, and she didn’t have the strength or will to stop it. Crimson fire flooded her brain. She tried to shut it out of her mind, but it was already too late.
*
The guns of the frigate boomed again, making the whole vessel heel over several degrees before it righted itself in a sucking rush of spume and waves. The sound drew Larch Hawkstone’s eyes and he saw more balls strike and explode, but they hadn’t found their range, because the gate of fire, the sorcery Vyre had wrought, still stood.
‘C’mon, bring the damned thing down,’ he snarled.
But his own vessel was surging towards the western shore, where the bulk of their quarry were. He turned to his Teshveld Borderers and ordered, ‘To the longboat. We launch in two minutes.’
The troopship was boiling with activity, whistles shrilling and officers bellowing. The Bolgravian marines were in position while the sailors were readying the vessel to luff and come about. How Vyre’s people had got themselves spread over the two shores, Hawkstone had no idea, but it was ideal: divide and conquer.
We’ll get this done, give that blasted Ramkiseri prick his massacre, then go home laden with coin to drink away the memories. Just let me get Rosebud and Angrit safely out of it . . .
Jorl and Karil, the twin Bolgrav sorcerers with lank blond hair and a disdain for all lesser forms of life, were huddled together, manipulating the winds to fill the vessels’ sails as they ploughed through the waves. Then another volley from the frigate’s bombards reverberated through the bay, tearing up the eastern beach. There were fewer folk near the burning gate now, and Zorne’s flagship was readying its own longboat.
Is it too much to hope that a stray ball takes Zorne in the back? he wondered.
But the western shore was looming in front of them and at the captain’s signal, the sorcerer twins suddenly sucked the air from the sails and as the troopship came about hard, the longboats were already lowering, slapping into the waves. Hawkstone peered through the sea-spray and saw only women and children among the confusion of horses and wagons. It didn’t look like anyone was set up to defend the beach.
Rosebud would be two by now, just a toddler. His only child, so far as he knew. Krag it . . . ‘Move, you bastards,’ he hollered. ‘I want us on the shore before those damned Bolgravs!’
His Borderers poured into their boat and he settled into the prow. Rowers propelled them towards the shore, but in moments it became clear that the green-clad marines, trained to the oar, were ploughing ahead. Hawkstone’s men were still sixty yards away when they were pouring ashore. As they were kneeling to aim their flintlocks there was still no sign of defence forming in the dunes above. Vyre’s hapless travellers were all over the place and it was going to be a slaughter.
‘Row, you feckers,’ Hawkstone roared, ‘row!’
*
When Vidar saw the troopship luff and turn broadside, he feared bombards like Vyre was facing on the other beach, but instead, it discharged three longboats with practised efficiency, flintlocks slung over the shoulders of men in distinctive green uniforms: Bolgrav marines . . .
He’d come through the portal with his bearskin fury on the rise, but when he saw the panic rising among the travellers, he’d realised that what was needed here was calm. So he’d gathered in the hunters, knowing how much they loathed those hated uniforms.
He strode through the chaos of screeching children, panicky beasts and men who didn’t know whether to stand or run, shouting to those with him to follow. ‘Corbyn, Pick, Varte, all of you! You want to get hunted down like dogs, or you gonna fight?’
‘I’ll be takin’ me chances,’ Mat Varte grimaced. He turned and went sprinting off.
Any mix of folk included backsliders, he knew, but the rest were brandishing their weapons. ‘Where’s Vyre?’ one shouted. ‘Where’s that kraggin’ sorcerer when you need him?’
‘He’s comin’ with the praxis to feck those marines any mo,’ Vidar replied, ‘but we must hold for him.’
Those with flintlocks were loading, tipping powder down the barrels, pounding in the balls and checking the flints. Those without guns were stringing bows and counting arrows. ‘I c’n shoot faster with these anyway,’ one remarked.
‘True enough,’ Vidar agreed. ‘Now listen up: those marines will shoot maybe twice a minute if they’re good. But they won’t all shoot at once – they’ll split into groups and rotate fire, meaning they’ll volley every five or six seconds: that’s the famous Bolgrav rolling volley. But they’ll be on the beach, in the open and we’ll be fighting from cover.’
‘What, like cowards?’ one of Rhamp’s mercenaries jeered.
‘No, like hunters,’ Cal Foaley growled.
‘Krag, yeah,’ Corbyn spat, spittle flecking his beard.
‘I feckin’ hate Bolgies,’ Jami Pick added.
Vidar slapped his shoulder. ‘Then let’s go!’
They fanned out into the dunes. Vidar spotted Elgus Rhamp standing with his armoured men and waved them forward. The knight saw and stared, then began herding his men into the dunes as well.
He hasn’t got anywhere to run – he can’t survive in the wild like us, so he’s all in, too.
Across the bay, another volley of bombards resounded and the distant spot where Raythe stood was engulfed in flashes of flame. How many were left over there, he had no idea, but surely most were through by now. Get over here, Raythe. Together, we’ve got a chance.
Vyre’s leggy daughter was still beside the portal, and women and children were still stumbling through. He could hear Varahana’s voice above the clamour as she herded the newcomers to the rear. His heart thudded at the thought of what would happen to her especially, if their defence failed.
I won’t let it.
He picked a spot for himself in the narrow strip of dunes between clumps of tussock and took aim. Jesco Duretto dropped to his side and did likewise, the Shadran smiling as if this were a soirée. Years fell like scales from Vidar’s eyes and he remembered punctured, hacked and bloodied men lying in heaps, passionate patriots and cynical mercenaries alike, all ripped up by Bolgravian bombards and their infamous rolling volleys.
Feck, I hate this business, he thought as the second longboat spewed more marines, who came staggering through the surf to join the men from the first boat. But I love it too. It’s all I know.
The beast inside him slavered in anticipation, the bearskin’s burden, but this wasn’t yet the maelstrom of blood and chaos that would bring out his darkest side. That would come later, when it came down to hand-to-hand combat.
‘We hold!’ he shouted to his unseen comrades. ‘Make every shot count!’
*
Raythe saw the world through a scarlet haze. There was something lodged in his side that was sending knives of agony through him every time he moved. But he didn’t have much longer to hold on.
Just twelve more people, then Kemara and I can go . . .
Raythe waved through the last few people, some old men who’d lain crouched in the grass, letting the women and children go first. There were four torn corpses around him, a man and his wife and two children who’d lost the lottery of death during the last cannonade.
Without the Westgate and Kemara to hold him up, he’d be down. H
e was screaming to the spirits, commanding them to churn the earth and swallow the smouldering balls before they exploded, but he wasn’t always in time, and he could feel the link he’d plunged into Kemara, like a harpoon into a whale, was draining her to the core. She was faltering too, but he couldn’t stop. If he did, he’d fail, and to fail here was to die.
The frigate was at the very edge of the shallows and now a longboat was ploughing through the surf, filled with Bolgrav marines in their green coats, long-barrelled guns strapped to their backs as they rowed.
‘One more minute,’ he pleaded to Kemara. ‘Hold on!’
He feared she was too far gone, but she rallied, her face in a rictus of pain, almost demonic with her blazing eyes and bared teeth. From somewhere she drew on some deeper core and sent more energy.
He steadied, shouted, ‘Come on,’ at the last travellers waiting to pass through the portal – two old men carrying a blood-drenched third. ‘Move!’
Once these last folk are gone, we have to go too . . . before I faint.
‘Stay with me,’ he shouted at Kemara. ‘Just a moment longer—’
*
Kemara was at the tipping point, torn by need and fear. Raythe was white as a sheet and swaying, but his lips were pouring forth rune-words that opened up the earth, smothering cannonballs, while he kept the Westgate open. But the longboat was coming for them and the naval gunners had the range now. The next volley would almost certainly rip them apart . . .
Feck it, it’s kill or die . . .
She opened her soul fully – not to Raythe Vyre, but to the mask, to Buramanaka, and his feral mind flooded hers, his smell and taste and urgency filling her mind in its rush to experience life again, and words learned years ago from Ionia burst from her lips.
‘Kaneska alla mizra!’ she shouted, spinning away to face the sea and extending her hands towards the dozen or so marines disgorging into the surf.
She felt Raythe recoil in shock – and then he leeched harder onto her as he shouted Flux in the rune-tongue – energy. His mind fused to hers like flame to powder, like blood and istariol, and their clasped hands crackled in an agonising current of power.
